


Lycanthropy for Beginners

by Revenant



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkwardness, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Hurt Derek, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet the Family, Pack Bonding, Pack Building, Pack Dynamics, Protective Derek, Season/Series 01, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out, Slow Build, Stiles Has Panic Attacks, Stilinski Family Feels, Werewolf Hunters, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:04:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1557743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a small Californian town where nothing ever happens there's been a hell of a lot happening lately in Beacon Hills, like dead bodies in the woods and crazy people running around with crossbows and guns, to say nothing of Stiles making first line. He's too busy to care too much about lacrosse though, because he's trying to get a handle on this whole 'werewolf' thing, and that's pretty tough to do when the only teacher he's got is Derek Hale.</p><p>In which Stiles is a werewolf (but not a very good one), Derek is an alpha (however grudgingly), Scott is a good friend (most of the time) and the sheriff knows more than is good for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** This is directly inspired by 'Dad, the Alpha and Me', a video by 0o0Vanilla0o0 that has since been taken down. Also by [this prompt](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/post/33365750084/i-desperately-want). The story will increasingly diverge from canon as things progress. Feedback is extremely appreciated (this is my first _Teen Wolf_ story!)  
>  **A Note on the Warnings:** The violence is pretty en par to the series, but I warn for it because sometimes it's very different to read than to see and I don't want to accidentally traumatize anyone. Also, the story deals with a developing romantic relationship between Derek and Stiles, and Stiles is of high school age. It should go without mentioning but just in case, I'd like to point out that rabies is serious (unlike how it is treated in the first chapter) so please be safe!

There's a square patch of gauze about the size of Scott's palm held in place with surgical tape just above Stiles' right hip. "It's the most intimate I've ever been with another living being and it's a wild animal," Stiles complains, holding up his T-shirt so Scott can inspect the injury.

Short of peeling the gauze off there's not much that he can do except to make certain that the bandage is fresh (which it is) and that the wound doesn't appear to be seeping (it doesn't). "D'you think it had rabies?" Scott wonders.

"The thought had occurred to me." Stiles lets his T-shirt drop back into place. His backpack is slung over one shoulder and he hitches it up as he shrugs. "But 91% of rabies infections are caused by bats and I _definitely_ wasn't attacked by a rabid bat last night. So, statistically speaking, I should be fine."

The answer makes Scott smile. "You really don't want your dad to know that you were out there in the woods with me last night, huh?" 

"Yeah, totally." Stiles nods once, sharply. They fall into step, making their way up to the school. "I weighed the cost-benefit ratio and decided to patch myself up. If I start acting weird, you know like foaming at the mouth or something, you absolutely have my permission to pull an Old Yeller on me."

Scott gives what he hopes to be an appropriately sour glare. "That's not funny. You know how much I hated that stupid movie."

"Man, you cried so much that I honestly felt embarrassed _for_ you. I suffered embarrassment by proxy." 

Scott remembers that he hadn't been the only one crying because of that stupid movie. Also, _he_ hadn't been the one who had turned around and yelled at their parents for letting them watch the movie in the first place. It hadn't been _his_ idea to liberate all the dogs from the K-9 unit on the off-chance that all those deputies with guns suddenly took it upon themselves to euthanize their dog with a bullet. 

While Scott is quietly recalling all of this, Stiles twists around and thumps his backpack against his, sending him stumbling forward a step. "Come on, dude, that was a little bit funny."

"You won't be laughing if it turns out you _do_ have rabies," and then, because Stiles gives him that sly sideways look that Scott knows from experience means he's gearing up to offer another sarcastic remark that will likely be in poor taste, he hurries on, "What do you think it was? That bit you, I mean."

"No idea. It was big. Like, human-sized big, but it was definitely furry and growly and I'm pretty sure it was actually an animal." He shudders, a full-body shiver that's so exaggerated it looks like a small seizure. It makes Scott laugh, but there's something in Stiles' expression, in his eyes or the pinched downturn of his mouth that makes Scott think that his friend is genuinely freaking. 

"Hey," Scott says, grabbing his friend's shoulder and tugging him back a step. "Are you really okay? What aren't you telling me?"

Stiles' eyes flick up to meet his briefly before shifting away. He licks his lips. "It's nothing," he dismisses, scratching his neck. "Just … when I was in the woods I thought I heard a wolf howling."

Scott doesn't get it. He waits for an explanation. It doesn't come. "Yeah?" he prompts.

"Yeah." Stiles licks his lips again and shakes his head, rubbing a hand over his buzzed hair. "But that's crazy. There haven't been wolves in California for like, sixty years."

"Oh." It doesn't seem like a big deal to Scott, but apparently it is to Stiles. Scott shrugs his shoulders and continues, in his most confident voice, "It was probably nothing, you know? Just someone joking around, fake howling or something."

"Yeah. Right," Stiles nods, his eyes wide. "Fake wolf howling in the woods in the middle of the night while half the sheriff's department and the entire canine unit search for the other half of a dead person. I feel better about this." He claps a hand just below Scott's left shoulder. "Thanks buddy." 

They start walking again, make it all of three steps closer to the door before a thought occurs to him and Scott drags Stiles to a halt again. "Do you think it was the murderer?"

"Oh my _god!_ " Stiles flails and smacks him but that anxious, cagey look is completely gone, replaced with a gaping expression of exaggerated horror and shock that Scott is entirely familiar with. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

" _Me?_ " Scott wonders, blinking innocently. " _I_ wasn't the one who wanted to go into the woods and search for a dead body last night."

"That's different and you know it!" Stiles argues as they fall back into step. "Besides, dudes totally bond over shit like that all the time."

Scott frowns. "They do?"

"Yeah, man. Haven't you ever seen _Stand By Me?_ "

Scrunching his face, Scott considers this carefully and then shakes his head. "No."

"You're killing me here, Scott. Seriously."

_________________________________________

Stiles has first period English with Scott. Mister Brunhauser starts the class by claiming that the police recovered a body in the woods but they have a suspect in custody so everyone should stop obsessing over it and focus on Kafka's _Metamorphosis_. It's total bullshit. 

Not the _Metamorphosis_ because Stiles actually really liked it, and not the bit about retrieving the body from the woods because after he literally fell right over it (and after he escaped whatever animal attacked him) he totally called in an anonymous tip. As far as he knows though, his dad hasn't brought anyone in for the murder.

When Scott glances over to confirm or deny their English teacher's comment Stiles makes a face and shrugs. Scott turns back around in his desk and Stiles goes back to desperately trying to ignore how much his head is pounding, has been pounding ever since he left his house this morning, actually. He's all too familiar with the fact that a headache is one of the symptoms of rabies. It would be horrible but also just his luck to protect his dad from the fact that it had been Stiles who had found the other half of the body, only to die from a totally preventable disease. Stiles tries to reassure himself with the fact that the symptoms of rabies are usually slower to manifest, so this is likely just a typical headache. Or more accurately, a typical migraine.

"Seriously, guys, come on," Stiles groans. "Can we turn off the cellphones?" He rubs his hands over his face wishing for a whole bottle of extra strength Tylenol or something. When he looks up he finds everyone in the class has turned around in their desks to stare at him like he's crazy. 

_He's_ not the dickhead who's letting his phone ring out when the teacher is talking.

"Stiles raises a valid point. Though in future I would prefer that you raise your hand," Mister Brunhauser says, then he turns to the rest of the class and adds, "A reminder for those of you who have not been in my class before, I _do not_ tolerate cellphones. Everyone make sure your ringer is turned off now, because I won't hesitate to confiscate your phone. It would be a shame to begin the school year with a trip to the principal's office."

"Dude," Scott whispers, hunching forward to catch Stiles' attention. "Are you okay?"

"What?" The phone has mercifully stopped ringing and someone, a girl, has answered it. Stiles is only just now realizing that no one in the class has their phone out. In fact, the only person in his line of sight who has a phone is the brunette sitting on the bench outside, and she's nowhere near close enough for him to be able to hear her as she fondly reprimands her mother for being overprotective. 

"I'm fine." Stiles shakes his head and scratches at his cheek. "Just, I thought I heard a cellphone."

It's not just the girl outside, though. Stiles' head is pounding but over the thrumming pulsing beats he can hear Mister Harris droning down the hall, the sound of footsteps on linoleum, a conversation that he knows he shouldn't be able to hear that's happening somewhere outside of the room he is currently occupying. 

The classroom door is closed. So are all of the windows.

It must be the migraine. His dad gets really bad ones sometimes that make him photosensitive and he says he sees auras and maybe that's what this is. Maybe Stiles has some freaky migraine where his hearing is affected. More sensitive. Whatever. There must be a word for that, extreme auditory sensitivity. Somewhere someone must have come up with a shorter way of saying that. It's not really like hyperacusis because he's not just sensitive to the volume of sounds; this is actually hearing shit that he really shouldn't be hearing. 

The footsteps in the hallway are getting louder, and then the door to the classroom is opening and Stiles knows before anyone even steps into the room that there's a new girl joining their class whose mom has already called her three times this morning to check that she's alright, that she lived in San Francisco for a year before coming to Beacon Hills and that her family moves around a lot. Also, that she's come to school with a messenger bag and zero writing implements. 

Nobody's told him any of this but he's _overheard_ it, which is not freaking him out at all. Nope. (It totally is). He probably just made it up. He's imagining things.

"Class, this is our new student," the principal says as he ushers the brunette into the class. "Her name is Allison Argent. Please do your best to make her feel welcome." 

The new girl, Allison, takes the only empty desk in the class, which happens to be right behind Scott. She sets her books down and hesitates for a moment, biting her lip before reaching out tentatively, tapping Scott on his shoulder. "Excuse me, hey. I'm sorry to bother you but do you maybe have a pencil I could use?"

Oh crap, oh crap, Stiles keeps thinking.

"Yeah," Scott says, really breathily, and then just sits there and blinks at her. It's sort of painful to watch and Stiles suffers embarrassment by proxy again (it happens a lot when Scott's around) and, because Stiles is such an awesome friend he stretches his leg across the isle and kicks at Scott's foot, jarring him back to reality. "Oh, yeah! Right!" Scott says, and then pulls a pen from his pencil case.

The new girl, Allison, smiles gratefully. "Thanks. I can't believe I forgot a pencil on my first day."

Crap. That's like, actual confirmation. Stiles is not hallucinating this, he actually heard the new girl's phone conversation. That happened outside. A fair ways away from where Stiles is sitting and just … no. Nope. 

He raises his hand, flapping it around when the teacher doesn't immediately call on him. "I need to go to the nurse' office," he says, as soon as Mister Brunhauser makes eye contact. " _Right now_. Please." Stiles grabs his books off his desk and doesn't even bother to stow them in his backpack, just scoops them up in one arm and his bag in the other and makes a dash for the door.

"Dude, is it rabies?" Scott asks as Stiles passes him. 

Stiles has enough presence of mind to shake his head as he makes a beeline out of the classroom, heading straight to the boy's washroom. He can't breathe. He hasn't had a panic attack in a while but something is wrong. Something is just very _very_ wrong.

"Hey, man!" Scott appears in the door to the bathroom just as Stiles is sliding down the wall. "Is it a panic attack? That sucks. Just take deep breaths, okay? It's gonna be fine. Slow and deep."

Stiles is crammed into a corner of the boy's washroom right by the sinks, his knees drawn up to his chest and his fingernails digging into the fabric of his jeans, listening as Scott rambles about the new girl and all the fantasies he's managed to have about her in the two minutes that he's known that she exists. "Did you see her hair? It looked so soft and dark. It reminds me of that time we made that fudge cake for your dad's birthday but we kept opening the oven because it smelled so good and then when the timer went off and we served it your dad went to cut it and it totally was just a cake-shaped fudge volcano because it didn't cook properly. Her hair sort of looks the way that fudge did."

There was a time when Stiles would get panic attacks pretty regularly. It got to the point where there wasn't anyone he hung out with who hadn't witnessed one, and they'd each adapted their own way of helping him through. His dad, for instance, would just sit really still and take these huge steady breaths and he'd hold Stiles tight to his chest and breathe so deep that Stiles would always find himself unconsciously echoing the breaths and calming down. 

Scott's method is pretty much the exact opposite. Scott talks and talks, in detail and with a lot of description because he says, "You're always thinking, man, and I figure this happens when your brain gets stuck in like, a bad loop, so if I give it something else to remember and think about, then I can break the loop." It doesn't make sense to Stiles but he'll admit the technique gets results.

"I can't believe," Stiles gasps when he's able to catch his breath. "That you're obsessed with a girl you've barely exchanged three words with."

"We're soul mates," Scott says in that earnest way he has. Stiles is never entirely sure whether Scott is joking. "Anyway, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Stiles lets his head fall back to rest on the tiles. "My head is killing me. I'm gonna swing by the nurse, get some painkillers." 

When his heart has stopped racing and his hands have stopped shaking, Stiles drags himself to his feet and splashes cool water on his face taking a moment to listen and he notes that the pulsing thrum that's been banging in his head since he left his house is still there, if a little more quiet. He has a disturbing moment when he realizes it sort of sounds like hearts beating, that there's one that sounds louder than the others which he thinks might be Scott's, but that's ridiculous because migraines don't make you hear other people's hearts beating. Especially people who are not even in the same room as you.

"Did you just run out of English?" Stiles asks, because he doesn't want to dwell on how much his head is sort of aching right now and how it might be a migraine but it could also be rabies and he could be _dying_ because he's too stubborn to go to the hospital and ask for a cure because he doesn't want to worry his dad. 

His dad will be plenty worried if Stiles starts frothing at the mouth during dinner.

"You didn't look so good." Scott shrugs. "I'll take you to the nurse, make sure everything's okay. Okay?"

Everything is not okay. Not that the nurse notices or anything. No, she just doles out a couple of Aspirin and lets him go. The Aspirin helps the ache in his head but not much else. Stiles gets used to the constant thrumming and the perpetual whispers, snippets of conversations that cascade through his perception as he walks down the hall. By the end of the day he's still sort of quietly freaking out about everything, wondering what's wrong. 

As a precaution he's been drinking a lot of water. Hydrophobia is one of the symptoms of rabies, responsible for the whole 'frothing at the mouth' thing, which at least he isn't suffering from so, there's a plus. The downside is he's had to run off to the bathroom a lot. Finstock actually told him to get his prostate checked in fourth period Economics, and Scott keeps giving him these little knowing sideways looks (so not helpful). 

He spent most of lunch self-diagnosing himself with the help of a couple of medical websites he'd pulled up on his phone and discovered that yeah it could be rabies but it might also be cancer. He's pretty sure it's not the virus that only occurs in the tropical rainforest and has a name that's really more of a sentence. 

Stiles is just so very done with this day.

So when the bell rings he's more than happy to grab his stuff and head out the door. "Where are you going?" Scott shouts, which makes Stiles cringe a little because, geez, who knew Scott could be that shrill? "We've got lacrosse practice. Remember?"

Stiles comes to a squeaking halt. "Oh, right." He rubs a hand over his head. "I quit the team." 

Scott wraps a fist around the collar of Stiles' shirt when he starts walking away and actually drags him toward the boys' locker room. "Come on. This is the year we finally make first line."

Scott says that every year. Scott is delusional.

Stiles tries to resist but his best friend unleashes the puppy eyes which, just so unfair. How can Stiles be expected to argue with that? I mean, he still gives it a shot but somehow he's bitching and trying to weasel his way out of practice while at the same time shedding his clothes and pulling on his field gear. "I'm not doing it, Scotty. Are you listening to me? I quit. I'm out. I'm done. No more." Then he's picking up his helmet and his stick and following Scott out to the field, still arguing but also _still following_. "I'm rooting for you, I really, truly am, but I'm being realistic here, Scott. Coach doesn't even know my name, there's literally no way he's calling me off the bench. Ever. _Ever_."

"Stilinski!" Coach shouts at exactly that moment because Stiles' life is just ironic and cruel like that.

He sort of freezes in place, ends up squeaking a prolonged, "Whaa-aat?" that's dangerously close to being six syllables long.

"You're on goal!" Coach thrusts a goalie crosse at him.

"Coach, I've never played…" Stiles sputters, narrowing his eyes and glaring at Scott who is standing to the side and giving him two thumbs up while grinning like a jackass.

"I know," Coach says, looking gleeful and manic. "Scoring some shots will give the boys a confidence boost on the first day back. Get them energized and raring to go!" He claps a hand on Stiles' head and wobbles it around and then turns around and stalks off, yelling at the rest of the team.

"But what about me?" Stiles wonders. No one appears to be listening to him.

"Awesome!" Scott cheers, still grinning like this is the best thing to happen to them in the entire pitiful span of their lives. "This is your moment, man! Good luck."

"Yeah, great," Stiles mutters as he stalks reluctantly toward the net. "My moment. Can't wait. So excited, hurray!" 

He spins the crosse around in his hand a few times, tries to get a feel for the balance. It's better to concentrate on the weight of the protective gear on his arms and the stick in his hands than the conversation Lydia is having with the new girl on the bleachers, or Jackson's self-congratulatory pep-talk down at the other end of the pitch, but then it doesn't matter what he's trying to focus on because a second later someone blows a whistle and it's so loud it feels like a foghorn is blasting right in his face.

Stiles clutches at his ears but his hands are trapped in his pads and his ears are blocked by the damned helmet and he's sort of crunching in on himself and trying to focus on how this horrible sound is going to end eventually. _Has_ to end. 

And then it _does_ end, and he lets out a relieved breath and says, "Whew!" and drags himself up onto his feet just in time to block a ball with his face.

"I hate my life," he moans, sprawled in front of the goal.

"Shake it off!" Scott calls. "You can do this, Stiles. I _know_ you can!" 

Stiles would totally flip his so-called best friend off but his hands are trapped by his gloves. He tries anyway. Scott grins impossibly wider and gives him a thumbs-up in response. 

"Shake it off," he mutters, dragging himself off the ground. Again. "Right. Great advice, buddy." He is absolutely not going to look at the stands because he's just not going to think about how Lydia Martin just saw him take a ball to the face like an idiot. 

Naturally as soon as he gets through thinking this his eyes dart in exactly that direction, and she's there looking beautiful as always and she's not laughing at least, that's something. He can work with that.

Then there's a sort of whooshing sound followed by a soft 'thwump' as something lands in the net of his crosse. "Huh?" he wonders, glancing down. There's a ball in his net. He caught a ball. He caught a ball and he wasn't even paying attention! "Hey!" he shouts, holding his stick up and waving it so Scott can see. "Check it out!" 

Scott cheers from the bench, throwing his hands above his head.

"I'm awesome," Stiles agrees. Then he digs his feet in and really gets into it because maybe this _is_ his chance. Maybe he'll become a lacrosse superstar and Lydia will realize what a jerk Jackson is and finally break-up with him, and move on to Stiles because he can work with that. He can absolutely work with that. 

Hell, he can _more_ than work with that because Stiles is honest-to-god _invincible_. Screw the ten year plan because he's going to make Lydia fall in love with him this _term_. This _month_ , even. _Right now_. He doesn't miss a single ball and it's just easy. 

So easy that he wonders why he ever had trouble with it before. Probably the team is just slow getting started after a whole summer away from the sport. That doesn't mean that Stiles is any less awesome, of course, but considering how terrible he was last season and how he actually didn't do much of anything physical all summer, well, it's only logical to assume that there must be several factors at play: one being the sheer magnitude of his awesomeness and the other being that, maybe, possibly, everyone else isn't quite at top form just yet.

But then Jackson muscles his way forward in the line and he so very much _is_ at top form that Stiles gulps so loud he feels like a cartoon character. "I'm gonna die," he yelps as Jackson sprints forward and then actually leaps up into the air which, overkill much? Then Jackson just _lobs_ the ball at the goal. Just freaking _hurls_ it with all of his freaking might.

It's weird. The ball is moving fast, Stiles _knows_ it must be, but it seems as if it's happening in slow motion. He can calculate its trajectory without a second thought and has all the time in the world to adjust his own position and Jackson's epic throw sails as easily into Stiles' waiting crosse as all the others had before it.

"Yes!" he crows. "Yes! I am _amazing!_ Kneel before me!! _Kneel before Zod!_ " Stiles smacks the ball down on the dirt in front of him and does a little celebratory dance, half Funky Chicken and half Macarena, until Coach tells him to knock it off.

_________________________________________

Today has been the best first day of school in Scott's entire life. Except for first period when Stiles had that panic attack because that totally sucked. But on the plus side Scott met Allison ( _so_ beautiful), and she actually came up and talked to him after lacrosse practice even though Scott was benched for most of it. Okay, so maybe he's just the smallest bit jealous of Stiles who played goal and was pretty incredible (and Coach noticed). Scott has always imagined that if they ever made first line it would be together, but that doesn't seem likely at the moment.

He's still genuinely happy for Stiles though. Especially as Allison doesn't seem to be the sort of girl to like a guy just because he's good at sports, and she hinted that she might reconsider going to the party Friday night if Scott is thinking of being there. And maybe he didn't even know there _was_ a party, but he's so totally going to crash it now that he does. All in all, a pretty damned good day. It doesn't even matter that he has to go scrambling through the forest in search of his inhaler because Stiles agreed (grudgingly, but whatever) to come along and help and it's sort of like an adventure.

"Alright," Stiles says, hopping across the stream and then twisting around to survey the woods. "This is about where you ran into my dad last night."

Scott starts kicking leaves aside. "I hope I find it. Those things cost eighty bucks and my mom's already pissed that I was out in the woods last night."

"You _told_ her?" 

"Dude, _no!_ Of _course_ I didn't tell her!" Scott huffs. "Your _dad_ phoned. It was totally embarrassing. She threatened to ground me. She probably _will_ ground me if she finds out that not only was I out past curfew without even letting her know, but that I managed to lose my inhaler!"

"Chill out. We're gonna find it. It's bright blue, Scott, not exactly camouflaged."

There's a tree keeled over a few feet away from where they're standing. Scott jerks his chin at it. "Is that where we fell?"

Stiles pivots sharply and looks. "Yeah." 

He follows Scott over, standing with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his pants while Scott drops onto his hands and knees and starts shoving leaves around, increasingly frantic. "I can't find it anywhere! I'm so dead."

"Dude, stop digging. It's not gonna be buried. It probably just slipped out of your pocket somewhere."

"But where? _Where_ did it slip out of my pocket?" He's gonna be late for work and Scott really hates letting Doc Deaton down, but he doesn't want to leave without his inhaler because he doesn't want to be grounded. 

Like, he really, _really_ doesn't want to be grounded.

"Wait, hold up," Stiles says, craning his head around to scan the forest. "Do you smell that? What _is_ that?"

"What's what?" Scott's only half paying attention, crawling over to the log that he remembers from the other night and poking around in the leaves. "Come on, man, help me look!"

"It smells like cardamom!" Stiles declares sort of accusingly. He tips his head back, sniffing the air. "And vanilla and…is that _sage?_ "

"We're in a forest."

"Yes, thank-you, Scott. I'm aware of that," Stiles says, still not helping at all, just standing there useless. 

"Well, aren't those, like, natural smells? Natural forest type smells?"

The look on Stiles' face implies that they are not, in fact, 'natural forest smells' but all he says is, "This is something else. It's like…" then he starts smacking the back of his hand against the side of Scott's head. "Hey. _Hey._ Hey, Scotty. Man, someone's here."

Scott twists around just as a creepy pale dude dressed head-to-toe in black (his hair is even black), glares at them and demands to know, "What are you doing here?" 

Scott licks his lips, glancing up at Stiles. "We're just…"

But Pale Dude cuts him off. "This is private property."

"Sorry man." Stiles holds up both his hands in the universal sign of 'we surrender, don't hurt us'. "We didn't know."

Scott nods in agreement, slowly rising to his feet. "We were just looking for something but uh ... we'll go..." 

Pale Dude stares at Stiles for a long second before he turns his glare on Scott. There's an awkward moment where they all just stand there, and then Pale Dude pulls something out of his jacket pocket and tosses it at Scott who only fumbles it a little. It's his inhaler.

Smiling, Scott tries to say thank-you but there's this weird sort of assessing look the dude is giving Stiles. It's super intense. And when his eyes shift back to Scott all the words just sort of leave him.

"Okay, thanks! We're leaving now." Stiles grabs Scott's arm and starts hauling him along. "Bye! Sorry for trespassing on your woods!" he calls over his shoulder, waving with his free hand as he continues to drag Scott back in the direction they came.

"That was so weird," Scott says when Pale Dude is no longer visible behind them.

Stiles lets him go and sort of shoves him a little to keep him moving. "That was Derek Hale!" he hisses. "You remember, right? He's only a few years older than us."

"Remember what?"

"His family?" Stiles says, the 'duh' evident in his tone. "They all burned to death in a fire about ten years ago." 

Scott has a vague sort of recollection of this. His mom had tried to keep him sheltered about it even though the entire town was buzzing with gossip. Her efforts were short-lived because of course Stiles had shown up at his house and promptly recounted everything he had overheard when he'd been visiting his dad at the sheriff's station: eleven people dead in a house fire. Scott can't even imagine losing his mom, let alone losing his mom along with ten other close family members. 

Scott doesn't even have ten other close family members. "What's he doing back here, d'you think?"

"I dunno," Stiles shrugs, his shoulders bouncing up and then dropping back down just as fast. 

"If something like that happened to me, I wouldn't ever come back." Stiles nods in agreement and then Scott realizes that they're standing around in the woods and Doc Deaton is going to kill him. "Shit, I've got to get to work."

"Relax, buddy, I'll drop you off on my way home." Stiles drapes an arm around Scott's shoulders and they walk like that for a bit. Whatever lingering irritation and jealousy that had been flickering inside him from lacrosse practice just snuffs out entirely. Stiles is his best friend, his brother, and Scott really can't stay mad at him. Not for long, anyway.

_________________________________________

Since his dad is working late at the station Stiles makes a sandwich and brings his dinner up to his room so he can start seriously researching what may or may not be happening to him. At some point he must fall asleep.

When he wakes up it's with a crispy leaf stuck to his face, the smell of the forest and cool earth damp with dew filling his nostrils and, oh Jesus, is that the freaky herbs and vanilla scent?

Scrambling to his feet Stiles scans the immediate area and, yup, there's Derek Hale glaring at him from across a nice little stream. "Oh shit," Stiles says as he swats the leaf off of his face. "Did I sleepwalk onto your property? I'm sorry, man, I swear I didn't do it on purpose." Derek just narrows his eyes and it's five kinds of awkward standing out in the middle of the woods in his flannel sleep pants and his loose T-shirt with mud caked between his toes, which is just all kinds of uncomfortable, and dirt under his fingernails. 

"I'm just gonna…" Stiles points in what he hopes is the direction of the road. "Just gonna go," he says. "Nice to see you again. I mean, not _nice_... actually it's sort of creepy because you're just, you know, _staring_ at me. But hey, I'm the guy who just sleepwalked his way onto your property so…"

"It's not," Derek says. Stiles blinks uncomprehendingly at him because, _what?_ "My property," he grudgingly elaborates.

"Oh. That's good. Okay." Stiles rubs a hand over his head. "Hey, were you sleepwalking too?" 

But obviously Derek Hale wasn't sleepwalking because he looks pretty much exactly like he did the other day: stupidly pale and covered in black and no trace of dirt anywhere and also, yeah, totally not wearing a Spiderman T-shirt that's about two sizes too big with the decals flaking off. He's wearing _boots_ so _clearly_ he's far more prepared for the out-of-doors than Stiles currently is. "Okay. Bye!"

"The road is the other way," Derek says as Stiles stumbles away from the stream.

"Good to know!" Stiles shouts back and course corrects.

He tells himself that it was just a one-time sleepwalking thing. He used to do that all the time as a kid and maybe this is more of the same. Though he doesn't remember ever sleepwalking all the way out into the woods, and it's a little freaky to wake up so far from home, in your pajamas, with a strange man close by but, you know, it's not like anything happened. It was just weird and startling.

Stiles keeps telling himself this over the long walk back to his house. Repeats it as he awkwardly climbs the tree to get into his room because he doesn't need his dad asking where he was, and then continues the pep talk as he showers and clears the dirt from between his toes. 

When he comes downstairs for breakfast, clean and refreshed and almost convinced that everything is totally fine, he overhears his dad on the phone (totally by accident). The fiber analysis came in: it turns out the hairs found on the body are wolf hairs. Groaning, Stiles drops his head down onto the table. Forget being done with the _day_ , he done with this whole _week_. Just so very much done.

"You okay, son?" his dad asks after he hangs up. 

Stiles doesn't bother to lift his head. "Yeah dad. Everything's great. Couldn't be better." His dad just stands there looking at him for a minute. Stiles tries to convince himself that the steady thump-thump he can hear isn't his dad's heartbeat. He totally fails.

"If there's something wrong, anything at all, you know you can…"

Stiles jerks his head up from the table. "I know, dad," he says, completely honest. "And, you know, thanks."

"Okay." His dad rests a hand on Stiles' shoulder for a second, flexes his fingers. There's a stiffness to his expression that Stiles recognizes, it's the face he always gets when he knows he's being lied to but has resigned himself to let it go. For now. "Have a good day at school, kiddo."

"Right, school." Stiles pokes at his cereal morosely as his dad heads out. 

He actually forgot all about school.

_________________________________________

Stiles' Jeep screeches to a stop right in front of Scott, who is forced to squeeze the breaks on his bike as hard as he can, rubber grips squealing over his tires in order to avoid a head-on collision. "What the hell, man?"

"Quick!" Stiles says, hanging out his driver side window. "Get in the Jeep!"

"Dude, no. Stop messing around. Class starts in like, five minutes!"

"This is _life and death!_ " Scott gapes and Stiles flails his hands. "Okay, maybe not life and death, but it's _serious_ , okay?" and he looks serious, so much so that Scott lets himself be kidnapped from school.

"I think I'm a werewolf," Stiles says when they're a safe distance away, parked on a side road in a semi-industrial area where there probably aren't any police patrolling. "No, wait, hear me out!" he insists when Scott opens his mouth.

So Scott closes his mouth again and lets Stiles explain how he's hearing things that he shouldn't be hearing ('Heartbeats, Scott. Like actual people's hearts, _that are beating_ ') and see and smell things that he really shouldn't be seeing or smelling ('My dad is totally sneaking hamburgers when he's at work and now I have actual proof!'). "I'm sleepwalking again," he continues. "I woke up in the woods this morning. And met Derek again, which you know, awkward and creepy. That dude seriously weirds me out."

It takes a minute to process Stiles' anxious rambling. "That doesn't mean you're a werewolf," Scott points out. "Werewolves don't actually exist."

"Except _what if they do?_ " Stiles flaps his hands sort of urgently, and then reminds Scott about how he heard a howl in the woods. "And the hairs on the body, they're _wolf_ hairs, Scott!" he exclaims, working himself up even more. "What if it's real? What if I'm really turning into a werewolf _as we speak?_ "

Scott surveys his friend closely: same close-cut hair, same brown eyes, same turned-up nose and wide mouth. "You don't look any different," he says. "I think you're overreacting." 

Stiles seems more frustrated by this statement than soothed, but Scott doesn't know what else he can say, so he just waits it out. He waits until Stiles has calmed down and stopped trying to convince Scott that he's a werewolf, and then Scott makes Stiles drive them back to school in time for second period. 

He honestly thinks that'll be the end of it. 

They've got lacrosse practice after school and Coach Finstock divides the team up and makes them scrimmage and Stiles is just ... Stiles is just sort of incredible. He does an honest-to-god backflip at one point, and Coach tells him he's made first line. Scott is grinning and cheering and running up to give his friend a huge hug because this is amazing. This is the dream! But Stiles pushes him back and gives him an 'I hate you' sort of glare and continues to not talk to Scott. At all.

Scott feels crummy about brushing Stiles off this morning, but still. 

"Why aren't you more happy about this?" he asks after practice. "You made first line! This is great." Stiles rolls his eyes and walks a little faster. "Is this about the whole 'werewolf' thing?" Scott wonders aloud and Stiles hisses, "Dude, _shut up_ " but Scott continues, "Because being a werewolf doesn't mean you suddenly get really good at lacrosse. I don't think wolves even play lacrosse."

Stiles stops walking and stares at him, his eyes angry and his mouth gaping like he does when he's surprised, "Really, Scott? _Really?_ " 

Scott sort of shrugs because, yeah really. Of the two of them he's not the one with the good one-liners. He's accepted this about himself. "Look, man, I think you're just overreacting."

"I'm _over-reacting?_ " Stiles snarls and just, wow, okay, Stiles gets a little manic sometimes and he can be moody, but he's never actually yelled at Scott before. Scott actually jerks back a couple of steps he's so startled and Stiles follows him forward, shoulders hunched and head low, eyes bright with anger. "Did you even see me out on the field today?"

"Yeah, you were _amazing_." 

"No. I wasn't. That _wasn't_ amazing," Stiles insists. "What I did was _impossible!_ People don't just wake up one morning able to move like that. Okay? They just don't."

"Well, I mean the backflip was pretty cool, but besides that you didn't play all that different from normal. You got tackled pretty hard by Greenberg…"

"That was different, I got distracted by the… you know what, it doesn't matter."

Scott hurries to catch up when his friend starts walking again. "Come on, man. I think you just need some sleep. You said you were sleepwalking last night, you know? You're probably overtired and getting worked up about stuff and you'll wake up tomorrow and feel pretty foolish about all of this."

"God, I can't even—" Stiles shakes his head. "I can't even _look_ at you right now!" Then he storms off to his Jeep and drives off, his tires squealing just like they did when he pulled into school that morning. Scott dwells on it for about an hour but it's Friday night and he's picking up Allison. He has other things to think about.

Werewolves aren't real, and even if they were they wouldn't come to Beacon Hills. Nothing ever happens in Beacon Hills.

_________________________________________

It's Friday night and it's a full moon and Stiles doesn't know what to do. 

He's considered calling his dad and asking if he could spend the night in a jail cell. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing he's ever asked his dad, plus Stiles could easily pretend it's research for a school assignment or something. His dad would probably humor him. But, if it turns out that Stiles' fear is true and he does actually turn into a werewolf, then that leaves him chillaxing in a jail cell, possibly hulked-out in beast form. What if he hurts someone? What if he hurts _his dad?_ What if a deputy freaks out and opens the cell and Stiles gets out? What if he breaks out _on his own?_

Plus, if he _is_ a werewolf, then that means werewolves actually exist and have somehow managed to keep that secret. Which means there are probably good reasons to _stay_ secret. So becoming a werewolf in a public place, like the Sheriff's station, is probably a big 'no no'. 

If Stiles had spent a little less time sitting around with his fingers crossed hoping he was just being crazy and all of this freaky shit would just disappear magically, then he would have cased Beacon Hills, found a couple of secure places where he could lock himself up and not worry about hurting someone if he loses control, or being discovered by a security guard or a homeless person or something.

As it is, the only other viable option he can think of is his bedroom. Not exactly secure, but maybe a familiar space will keep his wolfy-self calm. If he does in fact have a wolfy-self. Who knows. Maybe he's blowing all of this out of proportion (he absolutely doesn't think he's blowing this out of proportion. Oh god, he probably has a wolfy-self now!)

After lacrosse practice Stiles stops by the hardware store and buys a couple feet of chain and the biggest, strongest looking padlock he can find. He knows this isn't a weird purchase. People probably buy chain all the time, why else would the hardware store even stock it? As he drags his chains up to the counter it feels like everyone is watching him. The cashier stares at him and yeah, it's probably that glazed stare that people in retail get sometimes, so bored and exhausted from work that they've checked out by the end of the day. But it feels like the cashier _knows_.

So Stiles starts running his mouth off, offering increasingly unlikely (but totally innocent) explanations about why he needs this chain. It makes him look guilty. He _knows_ that the more he keeps talking the more suspicious he looks but he can't stop. Even after the cashier has rung his purchase through and the transaction is done, Stiles turns around, walking backward towards the door, _still talking_. It's like an out-of-body experience. He can't make himself shut up until the bell above the shop door rings as it swings closed behind him. "Holy god," he murmurs to himself, swiping a hand over his face before he hurries back to his Jeep.

By the time he gets home it's late. He should have skipped practice, he knows, but Scott is so freaking deluded about that sport and he made unfair puppy faces at Stiles. It means there isn't much time to haul the chains up to his room and get everything ready.

First things first, though. Stiles sits on the edge of his bed and pulls out his phone. "Hey, dad," he greets when his dad answers. "I just wanted to double-check, are you working late again tonight?"

His dad sighs. "Yeah, sorry about that, kiddo. Just, you know, with this murder investigation…"

"No, no," Stiles rushes. "It's totally fine. I just wondered you know…because of… because of this pot roast I made! Which is in the oven. Right now…"

There's a stretch of silence over the phone and then his dad says, "Right. Pot roast."

"I love you, dad!" Stiles blurts. It's true, and also saying it never fails to distract his dad, which helps when he starts getting dangerously close to sniffing out one of Stiles' lies. But then Stiles thinks about tonight, and the full moon, and he can't help saying, "Just, take care of yourself tonight. Okay? Especially tonight."

"Sure thing," his dad promises, just like he always does. But then he hesitates a little over the phone and asks, voice cautious, "Hey, are you sure everything's alright?"

"Totally fine. I'm just staying in, working on an essay and … and making pot roast." Shit. How is he going to explain to his dad that there's no pot roast leftovers? Dammit. "Anyway, gotta go! Love you!" He disconnects before his dad can say anything else.

It feels like his head is already splitting apart but Stiles refuses to do anything half-way, which means that he sets up his computer's webcam to record, and his dad's digital camera in case something happens to the webcam. This way if he does turn into a werewolf and it's one of those situations where he can't remember whatever happens when he's in wolf form, then he'll be able to confirm all of this, one way or another.

Before he switches on the camera he forces himself to eat some leftover chili because he doesn't want to go rabid and start eating pillow cases and gnawing on his desk chair in a fit of starvation. He doesn't want to be compelled to break free of his chains just because he skipped dinner due to excessive nerves (excessive? This feels like the right amount of nerves given the situation!).

That done, Stiles cues up a soothing playlist on his computer, hoping it will keep him calm. He changes into a pair of sweatpants and a worn old shirt that's too big for him. If he's going to hulk-out then he's not going to wreck any of his good clothes. Also the loose pants at least stand a chance of preserving his modesty. Is he gonna have weird werewolf junk when he shifts? Or maybe it'll be like the movies where he'll have a huge wolf-head and be all hairy, walking around on two legs with no junk whatsoever. Sweet lord, is his dick gonna disappear? Is he gonna be a dickless werewolf?

Maybe Scott's right. Maybe he's worrying over nothing. All of this is merely a precaution. "I'm probably fine. Totally, A-ok," he tells his room at large. He doesn't sound at all convincing. 

Checking the locks on his window and his bedroom door, Stiles switches on the camera and then steps over to the chains, locking them into place around himself. "Okay," he says. "Let's do this thing."

God. If it turns out that all of this is actually happening then he really hopes the radiator is strong enough to hold him in place.

_________________________________________

Lydia's house is crammed full of people, a haze of noise and movement and color. There's music blaring, people are dancing and laughing and all of it is a little overwhelming. It's the first party he's been to without Stiles since he went to Maisy Adams' eighth birthday party, and that doesn't really count because he hadn't even known Stiles back then. Scott stands just inside Lydia's front hall wondering what he should do, where he should go, feeling like he stands out like a sore thumb.

Then Allison slips her hand into his and pulls him through the crowd. "Come on, lets get a drink and say 'hi' to the hostess," she says, tipping her head.

Scott's torn. On the one hand, this is the most incredible thing that has ever happened to him: he is at Lydia Martin's party, and he has a girl with him, as a date. Possibly a girlfriend, provided the night goes well. He intends to make certain the night _absolutely_ goes well. He plans to be a perfect gentleman.

But Stiles isn't here. At _Lydia Martin's_ party. Scott thinks of his best friend's five-year plan, and he thinks about all the parties he's gone to with Stiles and how they have a ritual now to psych themselves up before they officially walk through the door. It's weird not having that pre-party pep-talk.

Lydia greets them with a smile and hands them each a cup of fruit punch, but doesn't seem all that interested in hanging out. Jackson's got his arms around her and the four of them exchange a few words before Jackson and Lydia go back to making out. 

Scott takes a sip of punch as he stands there. "Uh," he says. "Should we just, like, go then?"

Allison laughs. "Come on." She takes his arm again.

"I thought you and Lydia were sorta close?"

"Mm," Allison says because she's just taken a sip from her own cup. She nods vigorously. "Absolutely. Lydia's my best friend."

Scott glances over his shoulder where Lydia is still making out with Jackson and paying absolutely no attention to Allison whatsoever. Best friends? Really? Then he thinks about how he's ditched Stiles and decides to actively not think about this anymore. 

There's a huge back patio where people are dancing and there's actually fresh air and room to move. Scott finishes his punch and asks Allison to dance, wrapping his arms shyly around her waist and trying to hide a smile when she rests her forehead against the curve of his jaw. Every time the music changes he keeps hoping for another song with a sedate pace so he doesn't have to let her go.

It's sort of uncomfortable because he doesn't want to embarrass himself and he definitely wants to impress her. Scott doesn't consider himself all that impressive he has little surges of anxiety every time there's a lull in their conversation. _'Oh crap'_ , he keeps thinking, _'What do I say now?'_

But it also feels totally natural because Allison laughs freely and talks openly about school and how much she hates constantly moving around. She tells him about living in San Francisco and about how, ever since she was little, she has always wanted an angora bunny rabbit. "Have you ever seen one?" she asks. "They look totally ridiculous. I love them."

She's perfect. She's funny and beautiful, and even when he fumbles around to keep their conversation going she still somehow makes everything feel easy. The more they talk the more relaxed she gets, the more she touches him and leans into him. It's totally amazing. He's loving every single minute of it. He's in love. This is what love feels like, he can feel love happening _right now_.

"Can I ask you something?" Allison says as they shuffle away from the crowd in order to catch their breaths. 

"Sure. Of course. Anything."

Her lips curve upward in a soft smile, she glances down at her hands then out to the crowd before her eyes settle back on him. "It's just, you seem a little distant. Like, you're in two different places at once."

"No, absolutely not," he insists. "I'm having a great time. Seriously." She gives him a half-amused, disbelieving sort of look and just holds his gaze. Somehow he finds himself admitting, "I fought with Stiles today, that's all. He's my best friend and I just sort of…"

Her smile stretches, becomes forgiving and sincere. "I get it." She squeezes his arm, and it seems like she actually does get it, and so he finds himself telling her everything. 

Okay, so not _everything_. Obviously he doesn't tell her the bit about going into the woods to find half of a dead person, or about how Stiles got attacked and now thinks he's a werewolf. Scott sort of just glosses over everything actually, tells her as much as he can without making himself or Stiles sound like they're total freaks. 

When he's done he just falls silent and waits, and Allison seems like she's mulling something over and then she asks, "It's not because he made first line, is it?"

Scott shakes his head. "I'm really happy for him. I mean, _yeah_ , I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little bit jealous, but I'm not jealous like I want him _not_ to be on the team. I just wish I was there _with_ him, you know?" He sighs heavily. "We've been friends since we were kids. And we fight sometimes, sure, but this time I just sort of … I blew him off, I guess."

Allison dips her head to the side so she can look him in the eye. Her hair slides off her shoulder and he feels the ends brush against his arm. "Because of me?" 

"No! Of _course_ not!" but then has to confess, "Not directly, at least. I mean, I had to go home and get ready and he was just … and I didn't…"

Her smile is totally soft and sweet, and her eyes sort of light up and she's already making him feel better just by sitting here with him. "Do you think he was doing it on purpose?"

"What do you mean?" 

"Well…" She frowns at him, her brow pinching like she's really thinking about her words. "I mean, was he just making trouble because he was upset that you were going out to a party on Friday night and he wasn't?"

Scott's shaking his head before she even finishes talking. "No. No way. Stiles wouldn't do that."

She shrugs. "Then I think you should consider the possibility that he really needed your help tonight." 

That's sort of what Scott has been worrying about, actually, but Allison is just standing there smiling, totally not judging though this is definitely a major buzz kill. "It's okay, you know? Friends are important. You should make sure he's okay."

It's absolutely not what Scott had thought she would say. "Really? You don't mind?"

"I'm disappointed," she admits. "I was having a nice time. But no, I don't mind. I understand."

"I should go, then." He's already stepping toward the door but he stops and walks back. "Do you want me to drop you back at your place?"

Allison looks around at the crowd and nods. "Yes, please."

When they get to her house Scott leaves the engine idling and Allison hesitates, her hand on the passenger door. "I really was having a nice time too, you know," he blurts out before she has the chance to go inside and disappear forever. "Sorry I had to ruin it with my drama."

"Don’t worry about." She looks like she actually means it. "Rain check," she adds, and then leans forward and honest to god kisses him, right on the corner of his lips, and before he can even fully process it ( _holy shit, holy shit!_ ) she climbs out of the car and saunters up the steps to her house, pausing at her front door to flash him a smile and a little wave and then she disappears inside. 

He spends a couple of minutes just sitting in his car and smiling at nothing and everything before he remembers why he cut the evening short and hastily puts the car in reverse, getting back onto the road.

Stiles doesn't answer the door when Scott knocks but he knows where the Stilinski's keep the spare key and lets himself in. "Stiles?" He pushes the front door closed, locking it behind himself. 

All the lights are off on the main floor except for the oven light in the kitchen. The house is absolutely silent, as if no one is home. Maybe Stiles is sleeping? But then, even when he's sleeping Stiles is noisy, mumbling and moving around. "Stiles? You here, buddy?"

Scott hadn't texted his friend to say he was coming. Maybe Stiles went out? But the Jeep was in the driveway. Scott climbs the stairs to the second floor and turns toward Stiles' room out of long-ingrained habit. "Hey Stiles?"

The door is locked but there's a trick to it that Scott knows and he's able to jimmy it open without difficulty. The door swings wide on silent hinges.

There's classical music playing on Stiles' computer, some soft melody for strings and the room is dark. Scott's eyes are still adjusting to the lack of light, his eyes catch on a little green light coming from the shadowy shape of a video camera. It's set up on a tripod and is apparently recording.

Rustling catches his attention, and when Scott follows the noise he sees Stiles. He's sitting on the opposite side of the room just to the right of the window, back propped against the wall and knees bent. There's heavy chain links wrapped around his wrists and ankles and loosely hanging around his neck. Scott can see a huge padlock connecting the chains to the radiator. 

"Uh, Stiles? You okay, man?" 

Moonlight is pouring in through the window, cutting the darkness. When Stiles tips his head up Scott stares at his friend's face: at the sharp point of Stiles' ears, the canines that are pinching over his bottom lip, the way his nose is crinkled in a weird way. Stiles' eyes are glowing. Two points of amber light, unblinking. 

"Holy shit!" Scott cries. "Dude. You're a _werewolf!_ "

There's a long exhale from the other side of the room. When Stiles speaks, his voice is lower and rougher than Scott has ever heard it. "I don't want to say 'I told you so'," Stiles says. "Because it just isn't strong enough." The way those glowing eyes narrow make it clear that, whether Scott can see it or not, Stiles is absolutely glaring at him.


	2. Chapter 2

Scott spends the first half of his Friday night with the girl of his dreams, and the second half with a werewolf who is also his best friend. "I get that you and Allison have this deep soul-bond or whatever, and you share everything even though you've known her for about five minutes, but you can't…" Stiles says as he peels the chains off himself the next morning. "You can't tell her anything, Scott. Okay?"

The truth is, Scott had at that very moment been imagining what it would be like to spend a full moon night with Stiles and Allison, and he wonders if Stiles might be psychic now as well as a werewolf but he's too afraid to ask. He settles for scoffing, "Dude, I _know_ that, okay? I'm not stupid."

Stiles tips his head to the side as if this point is debatable. "We~ell." Narrowing his eyes, Scott goes right for his friend's ribs in retaliation because Stiles is nothing if not ridiculously ticklish. "Stop! _Stop!_ " he wails, his arms flapping, his body spasming and contorting in his efforts to escape.

They stumble over the pile of chains before toppling onto Stiles' bed. Stiles might have a razor-sharp tongue and be super-smart but Scott actually works out and he's always been stronger. "Take it back!" he orders, digging his fingers into his friend's ribs, laughing as Stiles gives a particularly undignified squawk.

"Never!" Stiles gasps, wriggling and jabbing his elbows back in an effort to dislodge Scott. "You can't take-back the truth! Even when it hurts!" Scott has no choice, so he redoubles his efforts. Stiles is sort of wheezing from laughing so hard, there are tears in the corner of his eyes and he's totally pink-faced.

Then out of nowhere and so fast that Scott doesn't even know what happened he's full-on launched straight-up into the air and then shoved down onto the rug, pinned to the ground under Stiles' weight (all 147 pounds of it, seriously, what the hell?). "Ha, _ha_!" Stiles crows triumphantly. "Werewolf powers. _Awe-some!_ " The last part of this he actually sing-songs. 

Scott has absolutely no success as he tries to wriggle out of the hold, so he ends up ineffectually batting at his friend's arms and glowering. "Dude, get _off_ me."

Stiles ignores him. "This is amazing! Hey, do you think this means I'd be able to put you in a headlock, too?"

"No!" Scott blurts. He'd done that to Stiles all of one time when they were kids (alright, they were thirteen, but still) and Stiles has never forgotten it or forgiven it. "No, it definitely doesn't mean that!" His hopes that he has in any way managed to convince Stiles of this are slim, especially when all Stiles does is say, "I wonder…" in that way that Scott knows to fear. It's Stiles' 'I'm planning something' voice. He has horrible images of the future, of Stiles jumping around corners at him, popping up out of nowhere to attack him.

There's a knock on the door and they both freeze, their heads swiveling to look as the doorknob rattles. "Stiles? Are you up? Did Scott sleep-over last night?" Sheriff Stilinski asks through the door, rattling the doorknob again. "Why is your door locked?"

"Because I'm naked!" Stiles blurts.

Still pinned to the ground, splayed dangerously close to a pile of heavy chains, Scott is feeling (understandably, he thinks) just the slightest bit vulnerable so he levels a sour glare at his friend that he hopes communicates how incredibly unsatisfying this excuse is. "Dude, he knows I'm in here." 

"So? We've seen each other naked loads of times." 

Sure enough, Sheriff Stilinski sounds totally unfazed. "I assume Scott's staying for breakfast. Come downstairs when you're ready. I'm making pancakes."

"With egg whites, I hope!" Stiles shouts back. The hallway is completely silent. "Dad! Hey dad? Use the egg whites, okay?" There's no answer from the other side of the door, but after a second Scott hears the sound of Stiles' dad tiptoeing down the hall. Stiles sort of slumps in defeat. "He's not gonna do it." 

"Nope." Scott pushes at Stiles again. "Will you get off me now?"

Stiles glances down like he's totally forgotten that he's been sitting on Scott all this time. "Oh yeah, sure buddy." He pats Scott on the chest and then rises to his feet in a smooth movement, far more graceful than Scott has ever seen his friend move in all of the years they have known each other. 

Scott is far less graceful when he gets up, and there's an awkward moment when he just stands there, sort of at a loss. Somehow this feels more significant than realizing that his best friend is a werewolf, maybe because it's starting to sink in, what that actually means. He runs a hand through his hair. "So," he says. "I guess you got stronger."

"Yeah. I'll add that to the list." 

It's really not at all surprising that Stiles has a list, saved in an innocently titled file on his computer. When Scott shifts around so he can read the screen he notices that everything on the list is prefixed with the word 'super'. "You should add super-hairy onto that as well." He receives a sharp jab of an elbow for this recommendation, which prompts Scott to suggest, "Ow! And super-violent."

"Shit, do you think that's true?" Stiles looks a bit like he's just bitten into a lemon. "What if it turns out that I really _am_ super-violent?"

"I dunno man. You seemed pretty chill last night." 

Granted, he'd been chained to his own radiator but Stiles had seemed happy enough to sit around and debate the merits of each of the variations of Batgirl (Stiles vows forever allegiance to the Barbara Gordon version, but Scott kind of prefers Cassandra Cain), and play 'would you rather' (which had segued into a theoretical discussion of bodily functions after Stiles had asked whether Scott would rather fart popcorn or be able to speak only the truth for the rest of his life). Scott had gotten his revenge when, during a game of 'marry, fuck, cliff' Stiles (despite his best efforts) had been forced to admit that his curiosity regarding the Joker's sexual prowess ("He's pretty crazy, I bet he'd be absolutely wild in bed.") would mean that he'd have to marry Captain America, ("He's the only one who's anywhere close to being emotionally stable, come on!") and push Batman off a cliff. 

"Maybe that's because I was in a familiar place last night." Stiles's face scrunches as he considers this. "I mean, there were a couple times when I wanted to seriously rip your head off your shoulders..."

Scott looks close but he can't tell if Stiles is kidding. "Are you still mad about that Batman question?"

"You made me cliff Batman! I'm _never_ forgiving you!"

_________________________________________

On the plus side, Stiles didn't do any serious damage last night (to Scott, to himself or to his bedroom), which means he wasn't reduced to a totally mindless, violent beast, which goes in the win column. He did definitely turn into a werewolf though, which is sort of huge and also seems like the kind of thing that he should tell a parental figure about. He's not used to keeping secrets from his dad, especially really big secrets, but he doesn't even know where he would start that conversation, hasn't even managed to wrap his own head around any of this.

All of this is still circling through his head as he closes the front door on Scott's retreating back. He finds himself standing in his own front hall, listening to the faint clatter of plates as his dad clears away breakfast, debating what he should do. He keeps coming to a decision only to change his mind again. 

By the time he musters the courage to go back into the kitchen everything is already tidied away. His dad looks up from wiping down the counter-top and he's got this weird expression on his face, sort of calm but also assessing. "So. That pot roast must have been a big hit."

"What?" Stiles blinks a couple of times, totally lost. "Oh, right! The pot roast!" The pot roast that he never intended to make and therefore never actually existed, he glances towards the fridge and stretches his grin all the wider. "I … ate it."

He expects his dad to complain about the distinct lack of leftovers, or to maybe point out the hypocrisy of hen pecking about portions and vegetables and then promptly proceeding to devour a whole pot roast, but his dad just keeps giving him this flat neutral look like he's waiting for Stiles to admit to something. "By yourself?" 

"Well, you know," Stiles shrugs. "I'm a growing boy!" He pats his tummy and rubs a few little circles over it, then he detours to the fridge to grab the orange juice. Just as he's raising the carton to his lips his dad thrusts out a fresh glass in his direction and pointedly clears his throat. 

"Scott looked nice," his dad says as Stiles pours out a glass.

"Mmhm." The orange juice has the perfect amount of pulp and is ice cold and totally delicious, which is why it takes Stiles a second to combine the weird look his dad keeps giving him with the tone being used but when he does, alarm bells go off in his head. "Oh my _god!_ Dad, _no_ —"

"It's natural, at your age, to be a little curious. So long as you're safe…"

"I'm not dating Scott!" Stiles shouts (maybe sort of shrieks), he's totally horrified. "I'm not _curious_ , in any way about _Scott!_ He's like my brother! What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Okay," his dad placates, holding his hands up and everything. "I get it." Stiles tries to take a breath and calm down, manages two heaving breaths before his dad follows up with, "But if you were dating Scott—"

"But I'm _not!_ "

"But if you _were_ , you know I'd support you, right?" 

The fight goes out of him in a big 'whoosh' because the look his dad is giving him, it's so obvious he's doing his best to say and do what he thinks Stiles needs him to say and do. Trying to show that if Stiles is exploring his sexuality his dad is in his corner, if he's decided his best friend is maybe something more that won't change how his dad feels about him. It makes Stiles feel like a horrible son for keeping secrets, for making his dad worry and try to puzzle things out with the limited information he has. Even if his conclusions are not only wrong but also disturbing, Stiles still loves him for it, loves that his dad is so completely in his corner. "I know and … thanks dad."

His dad keeps looking at him for a second and Stiles stares back, sort of hoping that this conversation ends before he breaks and lays it all out there: 'I'm a werewolf, that's the big secret'. "You're sure you're not dating Scott?"

Stiles gapes. "Yes! I'm very _very_ sure!" It's maybe a little disconcerting that this is difficult for his dad to believe because, why? Do he and Scott act like they're into each other? He doesn't think so but …

"And there's nothing else that you might want to tell me?"

"I'm not dating anyone!" Stiles exclaims, purposely misunderstanding the question because yeah, there's a very big something that he wants to tell his dad, but it's probably not a good moment. Something this huge with so many ramifications probably deserves having some thought put into it. At the very least, it's probably not the sort of thing you blurt out just because your dad mistakenly thinks you've started experimenting with you best friend (with Scott! Scott! Stiles can't even…). 

"Okay." His dad pats him on the back, smiling like they've just achieved something here. "Good talk."

"Not really," he mutters, but his dad is already heading out of the kitchen.

"So, my dad thinks we're dating." Of course he has to phone Scott straightaway, their friendship works because they keep each other updated. About everything.

Scott makes a sort of hm'ing sound. "Is that better or worse than knowing that you're a werewolf?"

Stiles shrugs, his phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. "I haven't decided yet."

"So you're thinking about telling him?"

"Yeah," he admits. Then rubs a hand over his face and collapses onto his desk chair. "I think whatever attacked me in the woods, whatever turned me is what killed the girl. If that's true, then my dad needs to know about this. At some point he's going to try and arrest this guy."

"Can you even arrest a werewolf?"

"That's just it!" Stiles is momentarily disappointed that it didn't occur to him to Skype rather than phone, because then Scott could appreciate the totally emphatic hand gesture he just made. "He's going to go and try to arrest whoever it is, not expecting him to be super-strong, and super-fast and super- _whatever the hell else!_ I don't want my dad getting hurt!"

"Yeah…I guess you don't have much of a choice then. You have to tell him the truth."

Stiles lets his forehead thump onto his desk. "Shit. I was really hoping you wouldn't agree with me."

_________________________________________

They've got a weekend lacrosse practice because Coach is determined for them to win their upcoming game, which is only a week away. Stiles picks him up and Scott shoves his gear in the back of the Jeep before climbing into the front seat. "Have you told your dad yet?"

"I just talked to you like, four hours ago!" Stiles glances over and obviously sees that Scott is totally serious because he rolls his eyes. "Are you nuts?" 

Scott assumes this question is rhetorical. "You're still planning to though, right?"

"Yeah, of course. I just need more time to figure this out." Stiles's fingers flex around the steering wheel and even though Scott waits, Stiles doesn't say another word for the entire ride to school. It's weird, Scott can't remember the last time his friend was ever this quiet, except for that horrible stretch right after Mrs. Stilinski died. Scott doesn't like thinking about that time; he doesn't want his friend going through anything remotely like that again.

"Hey." Scott stretches his arm out, braces it across Stiles' chest to stop him before he can climb out of the Jeep. "Is everything okay? Did something happen after we talked?"

"No!" But then Stiles sort of shrugs, his head tilting as he licks his lips. "Just, everything I've read says that the change can be caused by anger or anything that raises your pulse. I felt it last practice. Jackson already accosted me the other day about using steroids, I don't want to get out onto the field and literally tear him apart because he's being his typical jackass self."

"You're gonna be fine," Scotts assures. "I mean, you handled last night pretty amazingly, right? This won't be any different. Besides if anything happens I've got your back, dude."

"Okay." Stiles doesn't seem really convinced but he nods so Scott lets him go. "Oh, and if Jackson asks, I get my drugs from a guy named Bob who drives a pink corvette, okay?" He pats Scott's shoulder twice. "Thanks buddy."

Scott scrambles out of the Jeep jogging to the trunk where Stiles is already grabbing their gear. "You told him you're taking drugs? _What were you thinking?_ "

"I don't know! I panicked! It seemed better than him thinking I'm a freaking _werewolf!_ "

Jackson leers at them as they drop their stuff by their lockers. "What are you ladies gossiping about?" 

Stiles rolls his eyes but Scott is sort of fed up with Jackson's attitude. "Can't you kick his ass? Even just a little bit?"

"I explained this to you. If I could take back everything that happened last practice, I would. I don't want to draw more attention to myself."

"I get it." He doesn't agree with it, but he does understand. Still, he can't help pointing out, "I think you're seriously abusing your powers, though."

"Seriously abusing my powers would be using them for shameless self-advancement."

"No, see, I'm pretty sure _that's_ what your powers are _for_." Stiles rolls his eyes, but he's smiling as he finishes lacing his cleats so Scott doesn't feel bad. Feels pretty optimistic, actually.

They run laps to warm up, and then Coach makes them scrimmage and Jackson keeps going out of his way to tackle Stiles or block him. Stiles isn't hurt, picks himself up off the ground each time and shakes it off, and Coach keeps clapping and saying things like, "This is exciting! What will happen next?" but Scott is seriously getting sick of Jackson's attitude.

"Can you at least tackle him, just a normal tackle? Just _play lacrosse_ , dammit!" he hisses as they're walking back to their positions, Stiles trying to scrape grass off his tongue with his gloved hand.

"Shut up, Scott."

Scott grabs his friend's upper arm and tugs him back. "If you keep playing like this Coach is going to take you off first line!"

"Maybe that's a good thing!"

It pisses him off. If Scott could do what Stiles can then he wouldn't sit around and waste it. He'd kick Jackson's ass and put him in his place once and for all. He'd play so damned well that Coach would make him Captain of the team, and he'd rub that in Jackson's face because Jackson seriously needs to know how crappy that feels. He's bullied Scott and Stiles for years. Years! It's not fair. It's not right that they have this chance and Stiles is just, not taking it. Is too scared to take it.

He's thinking all of that and only partially concentrating on the game, not that it makes much difference. Stiles is the only one who bothers to pass him the ball, Scott never sees much action on the field. Maybe he misses the lead-up, but there's no way he doesn't see it when Jackson knocks Stiles down yet again. He just rolls his eyes because this is actually getting kind of embarrassing. Stiles is playing worse than he did before he was a werewolf.

"What's wrong, Stilinski?" Coach calls as he strides purposefully over to Stiles' side, bends over so he can get right up in Stiles' face. "You're moving slower than my grandmother today." He pauses, like he's sort of waiting for a response. "My grandmother's _dead_ , Stilinkski. Now, can you go out there and try to move faster than my _dead grandmother?_ "

Scott winces, even as Stiles shouts, "Yes coach!" 

"Thatta boy!" Coach claps Stiles on the shoulder and then proceeds to heckle him as he jogs back into position. 

He tries to intercept his friend as they move back to their positions because sometimes Stiles gets a bit twitchy when people talk about dead relatives, especially when they joke about it, but Stiles doesn't even look at him, just says, "Shut up, Scott," in this low voice that's all gritted teeth and pent-up aggression and keeps walking away.

The next time the whistle blows Stiles shoots forward, darting through the defensive line and when he gets passed the ball he hardly seems to notice. He's making a purposeful beeline towards Jackson, and Scott is half-concerned and half-pleased, freezes in place wondering if he should try and stop whatever is about to happen or not, but then it's too late. Stiles pitches the ball toward goal (where it whizzes right past the goal-tender's head) and then full-on body-checks Jackson, the both of them slamming into each other hard, and even though Jackson is taller and bigger and standing with his feet firmly planted he's the one who ends-up knocked back onto the ground (Scott swears it looks like he goes airborne for a second). When Jackson lands he immediately curls in on himself and starts moaning. 

Everyone on the pitch freezes as if someone's hit pause on a video player, and then Coach runs over and everyone swarms around Jackson, who can't seems to get up off the ground let alone stop groaning. Scott stares at the crowd, blinking and maybe he's been struck a little dumb but he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone take Jackson down before (it's sort of amazing). There's a slow-grin stretching over his face when he turns to Stiles, totally ready to congratulate his friend but it slides right off when he notices that Stiles is on his knees, curling forward and even at this distance Scott can see he's gasping for breath.

There's this spike of fear that goes through him that maybe Stiles got hurt, and guilt because hadn't Scott just been standing there a minute ago wishing Stiles would do something? But then, with a dawning horror, he realizes that there's another reason Stiles might be hunkered over like that. "Oh shit, _oh shit!_ " Scott lets his crosse stick drop to the pitch as he sprints over. 

Stiles sounds almost exactly like he does when he's having a panic attack, except that his voice is rough, sounds wrong, different. "I can't," Stiles gasps. "It's happening, Scott, _I can't stop it…_ "

He's trying to push himself onto his feet so Scott hooks an arm around his shoulders and helps him up, and they hobble along like they're in a three-legged race, Scott glancing over his shoulder to make certain no one is paying attention to them. Nobody is. When they get to the change room Stiles lurches away, braces himself against the lockers as Scott stands by the door fretting and feeling useless. "Okay, what do you need me to do?" he asks. "Do you need water? I can get you some water."

"Get away. Scott, _go!_ "

"No." Scott plants his feet. "I'm _not_ leaving you!"

He regrets those words a few minutes later when he finds himself crammed into a corner of the locker room, his hands held out in front of him, pleading, "Stiles, man, it's me, it's Scott. Calm down, _please!_ You need to calm down! It's me! _Stiles!_ "

Stiles's eyes are glowing bright amber-yellow and he's snarling and every bit the mindless animal he'd been worrying he might transform into the other night. He darts forward, long fingernails swiping out and Scott scrunches his eyes closed and presses back into the wall as much as he can and just because he has that kind of incredible luck, all the running around combines with the intense fear for his life that he is currently experiencing and he starts having an asthma attack.

There's a few moments of the familiar constriction in his chest, his heart jack-rabbiting in his ears, and then he can feel someone uncurling his clenched fingers and pressing something into his palm. When he closes his fingers again he feels the familiar shape of his inhaler and doesn't even hesitate, takes one long breath of his asthma medication and lets his head thump back against the wall as it starts to work. He knows what he's going to find before he even bothers to open his eyes, but it's still a relief to find Stiles crouching in front of him, eyes warm and brown and not glowing. Human. 

"I'm so sorry," Stiles is muttering when Scott is finally able to concentrate on something other than his breaths. "Scott, man, _I'm so sorry._ "

"It's okay. It's fine. Stiles, _it's okay._ You didn't hurt me."

Stiles grimaces, the expression twisting across his face. "I hurt Jackson. I heard his shoulder pop out of the socket and it was totally gross, but a part of me also kinda enjoyed it." He sighs. "This is the worst."

"He deserved it," Scott reassures, even though he knows that Stiles won't agree with him. "Everything's okay. We're good."

"I can't do it, Scott. I can't play lacrosse like this." 

The crazy thing is that Scott still wants to argue. The only thing that stops him is the wide-eyed look Stiles is giving him, so genuinely freaked out at the idea of hurting someone, of maybe hurting Scott, that Scott can't bring himself to argue. He nods instead. "Okay. We'll think of something. Plan B, right? What's your plan B?"

_________________________________________

He tries not to think about lacrosse, about the wave of pride and satisfaction he had felt at the horrible sound Jackson's shoulder had made when he had dislocated it, and how he had gone after Scott without meaning to, without being able to stop himself. He's been wracking his brain, trying to think of what brought him out of it and thinks it was that moment when he realized he was genuinely about to tear his best friend's throat out. The feeling in the locker room hadn't been like how the shift had felt the other night during the full moon, when his bloodlust was supposedly at its peak. He'd managed it then. Yeah, there were a few close calls as he'd strained at the chains a little, but he had always been aware of what he was doing, aware enough to be able to stop at any rate. It hadn't been like that at all in the locker room. He doesn't know why it was so different.

To distract himself Stiles concentrates on the problem of the dead girl in the woods. For all that he is determined to solve it he is working at a severe disadvantage. He has crucial information that the cops are lacking (mainly, werewolves), but his dad has all the crime scene evidence and the police reports and there's probably a whole bunch of clues there that Stiles has no access to. He tries to trick his dad into sharing details when he brings dinner over to the station but his dad is pretty good at dodging those questions (really, Stiles would be proud if it weren't so damned inconvenient).

The problem is that he has no idea where to start. Two halves of the same girl's dead body are recovered from the woods. He doesn't know who she was or what she was doing in the forest preserve to begin with, or even if she maybe was kidnapped from someplace else and brought there, or what. He writes it up on a piece of paper as mystery #1.

Stiles is assuming that whoever turned him is responsible for the girl's murder because he knows that murderers often return to the scene of their crimes and he was literally tripping over a dead body at the time that he was bitten. There is just no way that Beacon Hills has a psycho-murderer and a werewolf. He'd really prefer not to think that his town is that unlucky. Therefore, werewolf and psycho-murderer must be one and the same. This is obviously mystery #2.

Mystery #3 is the only lead that Stiles has that he can start researching, which is the sudden (suspicious?) reappearance of Derek Hale. Twice now he has stumbled across the guy and both of those times he's been in the woods. Granted, the Hale house (where a whole bunch of people burned to death) is there and it's possible Derek is trying to make peace with his past or maybe just visiting the old (burned out!) homestead, but he looks suspicious and Stiles doesn't trust him. He's a suspect. So Stiles reads everything about the Hale's and the fire that he can get his hands on.

By the time he's run out of material he's high on Adderall, feels a razor-sharp focus and is itching to find out more. It's dark out but he thinks that the last time he was in the woods he'd been helping Scott find his inhaler and he never really stopped to see if there was anything else that might be helpful in the area where the body had been recovered. It's been a while now, probably too long, but what if his newly strengthened senses can pick up a scent, or a scrap of material or something that the police maybe missed? His dad isn't home, so he grabs his keys and a jacket and heads out. 

Whenever Stiles goes to the forest preserve he always parks in the same place, right by the little sign that reads: "No entry after dark", because it amuses him to do so. He remembers arguing with his dad about it when he was younger, insisting that a sign wasn't going to stop anyone from going right ahead and doing it anyway, and how his dad had said it was important that people understood that it wasn't safe. Stiles likes to imagine that when deputies pass by and see his Jeep parked there and notify his dad (because they always do) his dad remembers that whole argument. That his dad gets that Stiles is saying: hey dad, I know it's dangerous, I'm doing it anyway. 

Also, since he always parks in the same place it makes retracing his steps through the woods pretty simple. 

The moment he's out of his Jeep, Stiles hesitates. He can't help remembering how he lost control. What if he tries to use his senses and it happens again? What if he starts running around naked in the woods and eating deer or squirrels or something? What if someone else is also ignoring the sign and hiking around in there, and Stiles tracks them down and hurts them?

He forces himself to take a long breath, inhales the smell of the leaves and the earth and the forest and can't help but feel calmer. This isn't like the other day when his blood was up and Jackson was purposely irritating him. He managed the full moon without problem, this is going to be just like that. Just a late night stroll through the woods, perfectly calm and easy. He's going to have to square with this whole werewolf thing someday, might as well start easing into sooner rather than later. 

Carefully, Stiles stops concentrating so hard on tamping down his senses. It's only been a few days but it's become habit to block out the smells and sounds around him. It feels strange to open himself up to it again. It feels natural, too. Feels right and soothing in a weird sort of way. He can hear the crickets and night insects chirruping happily and mice scrambling around, rustling in the leaves, smells the owl perched on the branch above his head. It's a little freaky to be so aware of his surroundings, but mostly it's pretty cool. 

He lets himself sink down into that part of himself that he's started thinking of as his wolf, picking his way through the woods without a flashlight because he can see perfectly well without one (and that's just about one of his favorite things. Seriously, night vision? So awesome).

The area where he found the body has no helpful traces of scent, no further evidence for him to find and nothing to track. He spends a while looking around just to be certain but eventually he has to admit he's shuffling around in the leaves mostly as an excuse to revel in the sounds of the forest and how his senses allow him to perceive everything so differently. Which is about when he realizes that he's not alone. 

He can hear heartbeats, too strong to belong to a rabbit or a raccoon, too slow for a deer or a mountain lion. Stiles scrambles up from his crouch and scans the area but whoever is coming is not close enough for him to see. He can hear footsteps, carefully in-synch and despite the obvious effort to be quiet there is still the sound of crinkling leaves. He's torn. There's plenty of time for him to climb a tree, and then he can hideout and observe just in case whoever is approaching is up to some suspicious behavior. On the other hand, if it's kids and they're out here to make-out or something, Stiles really doesn't want to stick around for that. 

He's still standing there debating when suddenly there is a familiar wash of herbs and amber wood and vanilla, and then a hand is closing down on his shoulder and spinning him around, shoving him backwards until he's pressed against a tree. "What are you doing here?" Derek Hale hisses.

"Trespassing!" he blurts because his adrenaline levels are maybe amped up a little too high for him to be witty right now, also hey, it's Derek Hale. Again. Seriously, again! What's up with that? "What are you doing here?"

" _Not_ trespassing!" When Derek rolls his eyes his head sort of wobbles. Stiles finds this hilarious. 

"Do you know who's out there?" he tips his head in the direction of the sounds and Derek frowns and looks around. It makes Stiles wonder what good that's gonna do because it's pitch-dark, what does the guy expect to see? 

Except he's looking around as if he expects to see something, and Stiles realizes he never even heard Derek creep up on him. Derek (still in his black leather jacket and everything) is walking around in the woods, at night, without a flashlight, and suddenly Stiles has a really bad feeling about all of this.

"Holy shit! You're returning to the scene of the crime!"

"Shut up," Derek hisses and drags him down into a crouch with the hand he's still got on Stiles' shoulder. He cocks his head to the side as if he's listening, and Stiles realizes that maybe that's exactly what the guy is doing. He's listening, and maybe he's hearing exactly what Stiles is hearing, which is the people out in the woods (their heartbeats as well as their footsteps), three of them, coming closer at a steady pace. Maybe Derek Hale is exactly the same as Stiles.

Maybe he's the one who made Stiles this way.

"Shh. Quiet," Derek says, just as Stiles is considering calling out. Whoever is out there in the woods couldn't possibly be as bad as a crazy murdering werewolf. "We've gotta go."

Stiles scoffs. "Yeah, I'm not going anywhere with you."

Derek's eyes glint in the scant light, bluish-greenish, whatever color they are. He fixes Stiles with a look that is distinctly unimpressed, and Stiles makes certain to glare back, defiant and mulish. Derek shrugs. "Stay here then. But if you want to live, you'll follow me."

Stiles stands up when Derek does, crosses his arm and jerks his chin up. "I'm not following a strange man who is potentially a murderer anywhere. Thanks."

"Stiles!" Derek snaps, his whole face suddenly shifting, his eyes glowing bright and red and his teeth creeping down over his bottom lip. "Shut up and run!"

"Hey, how do you—" Stiles starts asking even as he is already moving forward, sinking into movement with a sort of gleefulness. He makes it two steps before something explodes in white bright light that rends the darkness and blinds him, sends him staggering and stumbling as he throws a protective arm over his eyes. Something shoves up against his side, and he can tell it's Derek because he gets a nose-full of his scent as the guy wraps a hand around Stiles' upper arm and actually hauls him forward for a few steps, until he can get his bearings. 

"I'm good. Dude, get off me," he says when he realizes he can see again, he smacks at Derek's hand and their pace picks up. "What the hell is going on?"

"Maybe not the best time," Derek huffs, and Stiles knows that, okay? He's not stupid, but he deals with stressful situations with heavy applications of both panic and logic (in turn usually, but sometimes simultaneously) and sometimes his brain is connected to his mouth.

He's just gearing up to explain this when something slams into his back so hard the momentum has him spinning completely around. He swears his feet are actually lifted off the ground for a second before he goes crashing to his knees. When he looks there's a freaking crossbow arrow embedded in his shoulder. It's so foreign he has trouble processing it, doesn't comprehend what he's seeing (because it doesn't hurt, really) until he pulls the neck of his t-shirt aside and sees where the dark shaft disappears into his pale skin (a ridge of blood swelling up around the wound). "Oh gross," he says and then, as the adrenaline begins to wear off, "Also, _ow_."

There are three men approaching and he can see that each one has a weapon, but the middle dude is the one with the crossbow and the smug, self-satisfied look. He's got pale blue eyes and blond hair that stands out in the moonlight filtering down between the trees. When he says, "Get him," it sounds like every schoolyard bully Stiles has ever had the (dis)pleasure of meeting in the entirety of his (too short) life. Apparently, Stiles is about to be killed in the middle of the woods and he has a hysterical moment where he thinks: 'it's not even hunting season', because he'd rather think about that then about his dad finding his body. 

He really doesn't want to think about his dad finding his body.

There's a grunt behind him, followed by a choked-off scream. Stiles stops squeezing his eyes closed and risks a look over his shoulder just in time to see the crazy crossbow-wielding dude get swatted off the ground and go sailing into a tree, before landing in a pile with his buddies. Then Derek Hale dashes forward, drags Stiles up to his feet and starts pushing at him until Stiles takes the hint and starts running again (which is incredibly awkward to do with a freaking arrow sticking out of you, okay?)

They spend a frantic few minutes racing between the trees before Stiles decides he's not going another damned step. "Okay, wait wait. Ow, ow, _ow, please_ tell me we are running in the direction of my Jeep, because I need to go to a hospital."

Derek paces closer, frowning like Stiles is an especially irritating fly that keeps buzzing around his little picnic for one. "Why do you need a hospital?"

Stiles flaps a hand in the general direction of the massive arrow sticking out of his body. "Oh, y'know. _Reasons_." When Derek reaches out Stiles follows the movement with a suspicious look. "What are you doing?" Then it's all too obvious what the crazy bastard is planning and Stiles starts trying to lean back out of the way, "Please don't…" and then Derek rips the arrow out and then Stiles can't do much but spasm and flail and make a few undignified noises and collapse onto the ground. _"What the hell?"_

There's that head-bobbling eye roll again. "You'll heal." 

It doesn't feel like Stiles is going to heal. Mostly it feels like he's doomed to hurt forever. "Dude, _what is your problem?_ "

Derek tosses the arrow aside and says blandly, "I just saved your life." Like Stiles should be grateful or something.

"Oh yeah, that's _really nice_ of you to save my life after you _completely ruined it!_ I suppose Buffy and the Scooby Gang back there are the werewolf police. Forgive me if I don't swoon at your feet in thanks!" He refuses to acknowledge how he actually is swooning at Derek's feet at the moment. Who knew that having an arrow ripped out of your shoulder would hurt more than having it put in? He checks and yeah, the skin is starting to heal over. He'll have to add 'super-healing' to his list.

"What are you talking about?" Derek frowns. "How did I ruin your life?"

Figures that the psycho murdering werewolf would be a convincing actor. "The _bite_ , you _bastard!_ " Stiles staggers to his feet and shoves right up into Derek's space, jabbing a finger at his chest. " _I_ get bitten by a werewolf around the same time that _you, also_ a werewolf, just _happen_ to show up in town. Not exactly hard to figure out. Did you murder that girl, too?"

"I didn’t murder anyone!" Derek leans forward abruptly, right into Stiles' space and Stiles jerks back because the dude is growling. "And I didn't bite you!"

He would argue some more but somehow the moment Derek says it Stiles has this irrational (it feels irrational) urge to believe the guy. He throws his arms out to side as he says, "Well then _what the fuck, Derek?_ "

Derek just watches as Stiles huffs and puffs but slowly calms down. The expression on the guy's face when Stiles is calm enough to spare him a glance is very much like someone patiently weathering a child's temper-tantrum, and when he catches Stiles' eyes he just lifts his dark eyebrows. "Are you done?" 

Stiles is too tired to argue anymore. He's just been shot with a crossbow it's been a rough day. "Yeah. I'm done."

"Okay. I'll walk you back to your car. There could still be more hunters."

"No way!" he squawks, back-stepping hastily. "I'm going to walk _myself_ back, thank-you very much, because then at least I'll _trust the company!_ " Stiles narrows his eyes threateningly and then starts walking in the direction of the road, periodically glaring over his shoulder to make certain that Derek isn't following him. Every time he looks Derek is standing in the same place, with a bemused expression on his face. 

When he gets far enough away that the guy isn't in sight any more, Stiles thinks he should really not be smelling that herbs and vanilla smell, which almost sets him off again because Derek is following him despite his express wishes! Still, he's clearly trying to be stealthy about it, and he's not presently visible, so Stiles decides to graciously let it go.

_________________________________________

Stiles has a Plan B for everything, and it just so happens that his Plan B for skipping out of the big lacrosse game involves the sling that Scott has shoved in the back of his closet from that one summer he fell out a tree. Scott brings it round to Stiles' house first thing Sunday morning and ends up sitting at Stiles' kitchen table eating scrambled egg whites and whole wheat toast with strawberry jam because, "My dad got called out before he could have his breakfast."

"This is really good," Scott declares as he bites into his toast. "He's working crazy hours lately, huh?"

"I can't complain seeing as it's been pretty much to my advantage," Stiles says, corralling a piece of egg onto his fork with one hand as he pokes at the sling with the other. "He's thinking of instituting a curfew for everyone under eighteen."

"That would suck."

"No kidding, but I don't think I can talk him out of it."

"You don't think he'd start it tonight, do you? I've got a date with Allison. Our rain-check date."

"Probably Monday at the earliest. That way he can have the school make a formal announcement."

"I'm taking her out to the movies. I don't know which one yet, I thought we should probably pick it together." His first thought had actually been to go to the new superhero movie, but then he worried that might make him look like a geek, which made him wonder if maybe Allison already _knew_ he was a geek, and if she didn't whether that was something he should tell her because maybe she was the sort of girl who was okay with that. But maybe she was the sort of girl who didn't like geeks, which made him phone Stiles and ask for help. At that point it was four in the morning and all Stiles had told him was to shut up and let him sleep (actually what he'd said was: "I was shot by a crossbow two hours ago. Let me fucking sleep, Scott!"). Scott had hung up the phone obediently and tried to think what Stiles might advise him to do (if he weren't cranky and sleep-deprived) and had come up with the perfect solution.

"Good call," Stiles says, and Scott preens until he realizes that his friend is really distracted. He knows that there are a lot of reasons for Stiles to be preoccupied, but it still sucks. They share everything with each other; they never worry about being judged because they always just accept each other absolutely. So why is Stiles holding back?

Finishing off his toast, Scott asks, "What are you doing tonight?"

"I've been watching werewolf movies. You know, studying."

Scott scrunches his face. "They're not, like, based on the real thing, are they?"

"Bits and pieces, maybe. But I feel like I'm getting ideas anyway. For one thing, I have learned that I probably should never travel to Paris … or London…"

Scott doesn't really get the joke, but he smiles because at least Stiles is actually joking instead of poking half-heartedly at his breakfast. "Are you gonna talk to Derek?"

Stiles sort of freezes, a forkful of egg hovering just in front of his mouth. "Uh, why would I do that?"

Scott shrugs. "You said he was a werewolf. Maybe he can help you. Maybe he knows how you can control the shift and then you can play in the game on Saturday. You can't fake an injury forever, you know. Coach is gonna want you back out on the field."

"Look, I don't trust that guy, okay? He's got that face and the …" Stiles wiggles his fingers vaguely around his head. "I just … Anyway, I'm taking one thing at a time, and right now there are crazy hunters running around who seem to have no compunction about killing me, so my top priority is to talk to my dad because … because if something happens to me I want him to understand."

"Nothing's gonna happen to you, Stiles," Scott insists, and has the horrible realization that saying it doesn't mean it's true. The conviction that is lacing his words has more to do with the fact that Scott genuinely cannot imagine a world without Stiles in it, rather than that he has any sort of confidence about his friend's safety. This realization leaves a sour taste in his mouth that the sweet strawberry jam on his toast doesn't chase away.

_________________________________________

When his dad gets home from work on Sunday night Stiles has dinner set out on the table and he's sitting and waiting. "What's the occasion?" he dad teases.

"I have to talk to you." His dad sort of stops with his cutlery poised, about to cut into the fish Stiles made, and he sort of looks surprised and maybe a little lost and Stiles just, he can't do it. "Can we eat dinner first?" 

"Sure, kiddo." They have a totally awkward meal making stilted small talk as they eat breaded salmon and green beans with carrots, both of them trying (and failing pretty spectacularly) to avoid thinking that there's a serious talk in their very near future.

Stiles clears the plates when they're done, piling them on the counter because he's not actually cleaning up he just wants them out of the way. When he sits back down his dad has his arms on the table, his hands clasped and he's so obviously trying to keep his expression open and neutral (it's totally his statement-taking face). Stiles finds himself unconsciously echoing the posture. 

"So, dad," he clears his throat. "I've gotta tell you something, and it will sound totally crazy and you're not gonna believe me." He takes a slow breath and tries to mentally prepare himself for this actually happening. "So then I'm gonna _show_ you something, and you're probably gonna freak out, alright? But just know, I'm okay and I'm handling it, and it's under control. Okay?"

His dad frowns. "You're _sure_ you're okay?"

"I'm sure. Okay?"

"Okay." 

"Okay." Stiles tries to figure out where to begin and finds himself drawing a startling blank. "So, remember the other day when I said I was making pot roast? But then the next day when you checked the fridge there was no pot roast there?" His dad nods, though he looks sort of pinched like he's confused or something. Stiles considers telling his dad to bear with him but figures that his dad raised him, he knows probably better than anyone how Stiles rambles and, outside of Scott, is likely best qualified to follow along. Stiles braces himself and says, "Well, that's because I didn't actually make any pot roast that night." 

His dad just blinks at him a couple times when Stiles just stalls there, unable to think of how to continues. Then his dad releases this explosive sigh. "Crap, Stiles. I'm not mad that you didn't make pot roast. I couldn't care less about it!"

"I didn't make the pot roast because I was _busy_ , dad!" Stiles shouts. "I was busy turning into a werewolf!"

"You … what?"

" _I'm a werewolf!_ " His dad sort of looks like he has no idea what to do with this information, and Stiles thinks that's probably because he still must believe that Stiles is just making all of this up. With another deep breath he forces himself to continue, "So, this is the part where I show you. Alright? Please don't shoot me." 

He concentrates and feels that wolfy part of himself surge forward, and when he looks his nails have become claws and he knows he managed to shift, would be able to tell just because his dad is actually gaping at him.

There's this long stretch of awkward silence where they just stare at each other and Stiles feels like he's going to explode so he holds up his clawed hands and waves them around a little. "Ta da!"

"Oh god," his dad groans.

Stiles concentrates on how much he just really doesn't want to hurt any of the people he cares about, or anyone at all really, and his nails are normal human-looking nails again. He pops up from the table. "I'll pour you something to drink!"

His dad takes a little time to process all of it, but then he starts asking questions and so Stiles tells him about going out into the woods ("I knew you were in those woods with Scott!") and about finding the body ("The anonymous tip?") and about getting attacked by a werewolf ("You should have told me right away. You could have gotten a virus or something from that bite!"). That last one makes Stiles point out that he did get a virus, sort of. A werewolf virus, because he's a werewolf now.

So his dad starts asking a whole other set of questions, like what exactly it means (which Stiles doesn't entirely know) and what he can do (which he does a little better at answering) and whether he's hurt anything or been hurt by anything while he's been shifted and out in the woods, "No, dad. No. Absolutely not! Scott and I working on it, and we've got it under control." (Jackson doesn't count because, as Scott has pointed out, lacrosse is a violent game, and there's no way he's springing being a werewolf on his dad in the same conversation as the freaky hunters because, seriously, this is the only parents he's got left and he's not gonna risk giving the man a heart-attack).

"Scott…" his dad says, sort of dubiously.

"Yeah. Scott's helping me." Stiles narrows his eyes. "What? You've got that look…"

"I don't have a look…"

"You have a look!" Stiles insists. "What, Scott's okay for me to explore my sexuality with but he's not okay for me to explore my new-found lycanthropy with?"

God help him but it looks like his dad is actually thinking about this. "Well... Scott's a good kid, you know? I trust him, and he's got a good heart so yeah, if you were experimenting with him I think he'd be good for you. I think he'd be someone who would respect your boundaries while your explored yourself..." 

"Dad," Stiles groans. "I don't want to hear these things."

"But this …" his dad continues, ignoring him. "I mean you're a werewolf! Is _he_ a werewolf?"

"No!"

"Then how is he helping you? I love him but Scott…he just…"

Stiles thinks he understands what his dad is getting at. Of the two of them, Stiles is always the one who comes up with the plans and Scott is invariably the one who follows along. He supposes his dad might feel more at ease if Scott was at least a semi-reliable voice of reason, but Stiles has gotten pretty good at persuading his best-friend into just about anything. They're good friends, they're awesome friends actually, but if he's honest with himself Stiles doesn't have the first clue what to do about his lycanthropy so how can he expect Scott to know what to do?

"We're a good team, dad," he insists, because at least that is absolutely true. "We're figuring this out."

_________________________________________

"Laura Hale?" Scott echoes as he stands by the side of the Jeep on Monday morning, waiting as Stiles grabs his backpack from the passenger seat.

"That's what my dad said. They got the ID back this morning."

"Do you still think Derek might be the murderer?"

"I dunno." Stiles shrugs. "Do you think Derek would be more likely to murder his own sister? Or less? I sort of feel like he'd be a pre-meditated, sociopathic sort of murderer. But that might just be because he's severely lacking in social skills."

"It could be a werewolf thing," Scott suggests, which earns him an uppity sort of glare.

"What are you implying here, buddy?" Stiles asks, mock-threateningly as he swings an arm to rest over Scott's shoulders. It feels good to joke around like this again. It sort of feels like it's been a while, even if they're joking around while talking about murder.

"I don't mean that you don't have social skills," Scott clarifies with an exasperated sigh. "I just mean, maybe he lost control."

"Ah, crime of passion. I see what you're getting at." Stiles nods, and then huffs in frustration. "This isn't getting us anywhere. We need more information."

"Well, at least we know she was _definitely_ killed by a werewolf. I mean your dad said the bites were from an animal so—" he gets distracted because he spots Allison climbing out of her dad's truck. She flashes him a quick wave when she catches his eye, and a smile.

"Who is that?" Stiles asks.

Scott sighs. He can't help it because he's totally in love. "Allison," he sighs again (he likes saying her name, okay?).

"No, I _know_ that. I mean, who drove her in to school today?"

"Oh." Scott hadn't even noticed. When he looks he sees Allison's dad standing at the front of the truck. He sort of looks like he wants to follow her all the way into school, and Scott thinks it sucks how protective her family is, but it's sort of nice, too. He wonders if his dad would worry about him like that if he were still around. "That's her dad."

Allison hops up onto the sidewalk, her hands automatically linking with Scott's and he's grinning as he leans forward even as he protests, "Your dad is watching."

She tugs on his fingers where they're linked with hers and says, "Come here." They share a quick kiss, just a brush of lips before she steps back, her hand still in his as they head to the stairs.

"Hey, Stiles. You coming?" Scott calls over his shoulder when he realizes that his friend hasn't moved. "Man, you look like you've seen a ghost. What's wrong?"

Stiles' eyebrows jerk up but he doesn't answer straight away. There's this moment where Scott thinks that Stiles is about to say something serious because he always gets this really calm, flat expression on his face sort of like Scott's mom gets when she tells him bad news, like she doesn't want him to freak out simply because she's freaking out or something. 

But then Stiles rolls his eyes so hard his head sort of follows the movement. "Dude, you were _making out_ right in front of me. _Of course_ I look traumatized." Beside him Allison laughs, and Stiles bounds up the stairs and everything seems normal, but Scott can't shake the feeling that, for the first time since they've known each other, Stiles is keeping secrets from him.


	3. Chapter 3

Whenever Stiles says 'trust me' Scott instinctively has the exact opposite reaction. The fact that this time Stiles says, "Trust me, Scott," when he's standing on the gable of his roof especially doesn't bode well, even if his friend is giving him that 'be cool, I got this' look, which Scott can't help but trust. These contradictory impulses leave him blinking stupidly for a couple of seconds as Stiles moves further along the roof, away from the window.

"Why," Scott asks suspiciously. "What are you doing?" 

The moment to ask this question was probably _before_ his friend climbed out his bedroom window, when Scott might have been able to convince Stiles that this seems like a really really ( _really really!_ ) bad idea. Whatever the idea is because Stiles hasn't told him yet, but Scott can already say with conviction that it's a bad one, just as he can admit with equal confidence that he'd probably be in support of it either way. He might not trust Stiles blindly but he's got a lot of confidence in his friend. 

"Seriously, Stiles," Scott calls, leaning further out the window. "What the hell are you doing, man?"

"It's an experiment. I want to see if I can pull that acrobatic shit whenever I want, or if it only works when I'm in some kind of wolf-haze." Stiles rubs his hands together, grinning. "Don't give me that look, Scotty. I'm a professional here."

"Professional _what?_ "

"Werewolf! Keep up, honestly!"

Scott plays dumb just because he can, scrunching his face and putting on a really exaggerated expression of confusion. "You're getting paid for this?"

Stiles throws his hands up, shakes his head so hard it threatens to become a full-body shake. "I give up!"

It makes Scott laugh, right up until Stiles starts walking along the roof again, and then he gets serious. "You're making me uncomfortable. Come inside, man. We can talk this out."

"I'm not jumping," Stiles scoffs, looking at Scott like he's the idiot (even though he's not the one standing on his own roof). "Would you just trust me here? You're the one who keeps telling me that I should be exploring my new wolfy-self."

"Okay, that's right. I totally keep saying that, but maybe don't explore yourself on the roof." Stiles turns around and they share a very solemn look and then, in perfect unison, collapse in a giggly-burst of laughter because, oh god, Scott hadn't meant for it to come out sounding like that but that was awesome.

"Oh man, _that's_ why you're my best friend, Scott," Stiles says, still cackling with laughter and Scott's grinning because the sun is up and they're hanging out together and it's just the two of them. For once they're not talking about lacrosse (which pretty much always leads to them arguing these days because Scott wants his friend to play but Stiles doesn't think he should), or murders and werewolves (and murderers who are werewolves, and hunters who murder werewolves), or even Allison (beautiful, gorgeous, _amazing_ Allison).

"Check this out!" Stiles shouts and then jumps off the roof, his fingertips catching hold of a low-hanging branch of a tree. As he starts to swing out Scott hears his friend make a weird squeaking hiccupping sound, and then Scott's watching as Stiles basically drops like a stone, straight down and out of sight.

"Stiles!" He tries to listen for sounds of life but everything is distressingly silent for a few seconds (nothing but his own heartbeat thudding in his ears). He wonders if he should run downstairs and out onto the lawn to see if Stiles is okay but he can't actually convince his body to move at all, so instead he stays leaning half-out of the window. "Stiles?"

"Ha _ha!_ " he hears, and then Stiles steps into sight, standing on his own front lawn face twisted into an exaggerated expression of relief and pride. Like plummeting off the side of his own roof is some sort of accomplishment, or even remotely what he had planned to do. At least nothing seems to be broken. "Dude!"

"Are you okay?" Scott asks, skeptical.

Stiles shrugs and then pats himself down, hands tapping against the dark blue of his T-shirt, his thighs, his ass and then, as if jumping off a two story roof might somehow affect this particular area, he checks to make certain his crotch is still in place. Then he holds out his hands palms facing up and shrugs. "I'm totally fine!" he declares. "Ha! I'm invincible!"

Scott rolls his eyes. "You didn't jump all that far, man."

Stiles points at him. "Stay right there," he orders and then bounds around the corner to the front door.

"Where else am I gonna go?" 

"Did you _see_ that?" Stiles asks as he barrels into his bedroom.

Scott pulls himself away from the window. "Yeah, I saw it, buddy. Was that … I mean, was _that_ the experiment?"

"No!" Stiles says, still grinning. "But it was awesome right?"

It's awesome that Stiles didn't somehow manage to break his neck, but Scott is beginning to realize that this whole 'werewolf' thing is maybe something that Stiles can't just 'figure out' the way he seems to 'figure out' just about everything. Scott wants to help, is happy that Stiles lets him help (whenever he doesn't have plans with Allison), but from what he's seen Stiles isn't making much progress. Stiles is perfectly in control until suddenly he just isn't anymore, and there are claw marks at their station in the chemistry lab and a conspicuous tear in Stiles' backpack (which he had patched over with an iron-on Batman patch), he's growled at more than one person t school. Stiles has taken to wearing sunglasses when he can and once or twice Scott has had to throw a sweatshirt over his friend's head but at least Stiles hasn't completely shifted in public or anything. 

It's probably a good thing that Stiles doesn't have much of a temper, that he pretty much copes with everything by either deflecting or ignoring it, but every so often when Scott glances up and catches his friend's eyes glowing yellow it makes him wonder.

_________________________________________

During Wednesday's lacrosse practice Stiles sits on the bench beside Scott and tries not to feel overly nostalgic. Coach Finstock paces back-and-forth, shouting and waving his arms at the team, muttering curses under his breath. "Just like old times, right?" Stiles asks, bumping his shoulder against Scott's. Out on the pitch Danny lands a pretty sweet goal and Stiles cheers, clapping hard.

"Dude, would you stop?" Scott hisses.

"What?" Stiles asks, jerking a bit because Scott sounds sort of pissed.

In answer, Scott reaches out and stills Stiles' hands where he's been clapping them together. Stiles glances down and, oh right, that's why that felt weird. "You keep forgetting the sling," Scott says. "You always forget it. Someone's gonna notice."

"If they haven't yet, then it's probably gonna be fine," Stiles assures, letting his left hand hang limply again. He glances around but, as usual, no one is paying any attention to the bench warmers. Sometimes Stiles catches himself really missing this bench.

Coach has been checking in with him at the start (and at the end) of every practice, "When's your arm outta that thing, Stilinski?" and also sometimes in Econ as well. This is only the first week of feigning an injury and while Coach accepted it readily enough with only a moderate amount of whining when Stiles had explained it meant he could not play in the weekend game, Finstock's level of impatience only proves that pretty soon Stiles will have to come up with something better than a fake injury. It just so happens that he's got the perfect plan. The only downside is Scott is definitely going to be against it.

"Are you coming over after practice?" Scott asks as play breaks on the field while Coach marches in to explain that effective defense does not in any way involve tripping over one another and forming one massive pile of bodies (included the goal-keep) in front of the goal.

"Not today," Stiles says with a shrug. He glances over at the far side of the bench where Jackson has been steadfastly ignoring them (his arm is legitimately in a sling and apparently he's still bitter about that). Lowering his voice, Stiles says, "I'm going over to the station. My dad's been training me on the polygraph."

Scott scrunches up his face. "Why?"

"Remember what I told you about the full moon and the whole 'bloodlust' thing?" he quirks his fingers to make air quotes around the word 'bloodlust' because it is a very daunting word to think about in relation to himself, and somehow air quotes make it (at least marginally) less threatening. "I figure it's related to heart-rate, you know? Like that's why I kept wolfing-out during lacrosse, and my dad said that the polygraph was maybe a way to monitor that and work with controlling it."

"I guess…" Scott says. "Is it working?"

Stiles shrugs. "I can't tell yet. I'm still, you know, volatile or whatever." Volatile doesn't begin to cover it. The other day he'd bought take-out for dinner, sharing it with his dad in the cruiser and when his dad had started complaining about curly fries (that Stiles had purposely neglected to get for him despite being reminded three times) Stiles had felt his wolf surge forward, knew his eyes must have glowed bright and threatening when he had snarled, "They're not good for you! Do you want to have a heart-attack?"

His dad had been pretty calm. "No, I don't want to have a heart-attack," which is about when Stiles realized that wolfing-out on his dad was also probably bad for the man's health. He'd apologized and spent the rest of the night sliding the scale between mortified to guilt-stricken, couldn't make himself believe it when his dad had said that everything was alright.

"I bet he's excited though," Scott says, changing the subject. "That you moved up on the team. That he'll finally get to see you play in a game."

"Now who's forgetting this thing?" Stiles asks wiggling his left arm in the sling enough that Scott rolls his eyes and grabs his arm again, forcing it to still. "I'm not playing in the game."

"Not this game. But, I mean probably the next one. When you get everything figured out, I mean."

Stiles shakes his head and sighs. It's as good a time as any, he supposes. "This is step one of Plan B," he explains, gesturing at the sling.

"What's step two?" Scott looks suspicious, his mouth already twisting into a disapproving frown like he knows that Stiles is about to say something that will disappoint him.

"I'm buying time to see if I can figure this out, but so far I'm not making enough progress," Stiles says in a rush, just laying it all out there because personally he's a fan of just ripping the bandaid right off and hoping for the best. "So, step two is I take the sling off and go out on the field during practice and play as bad as I can and Coach will bench me again. It's not the first time an injury has permanently altered a player's ability, right?"

"You're just _giving up?_ "

"Are you even _listening_ to me? I've been trying but this isn't about playing a stupid sport. This is about my possibly ripping someone's head off. As in, permanently _separating their head from their neck_."

Jackson looks over at them and Stiles and Scott shift closer to each other, Scott dipping his head and dropping his voice when he says, "I know that. I get it. I'm just really angry about it."

He pats his friend's shoulder. "I'm not quitting the team I'm just, you know, rejoining the bench. We've had some good times here."

Scott's jaw bunches as he grinds his teeth, and he doesn't say much of anything for the rest of practice. "Hey," Stiles calls as they trek back to the change room. "Are we okay?"

Again, Scott twists his face up like he has no idea where such a ridiculous question is even coming from. "Of course we're okay, man." The nice thing about Scott is that it usually never occurs to him to lie. At most, when Scott knows a lie would probably be in his own best interest, he'll fix Stiles with a lost puppy look and Stiles will provide the falsehoods for him. "I don't care because it's lacrosse," Scott says. "I care because … you know."

"I know, buddy." Stiles bumps his friend's shoulder with the helmet he's holding. 

Scott rolls his eyes, forcibly pries the helmet from Stiles' left hand and holds it up. "You're not very good at this," he scolds, and Stiles shrugs because, what is he gonna get a mark at the end of this whole fake-injury thing? Is he competing for a gold star or a sticker or something? It looks like Scott has more to say, but then he just snorts and shakes his head and smiles, tucking Stiles' helmet under his arm. "If there's something I can do…" Scott hedges as they drop their gear by their lockers.

"Dude," Stiles says. "You're pretty much already doing it."

_________________________________________

Scott rides his bike through the woods after practice, pedaling as quickly as he can because he'll never be able to think of the Forest Preserve as a fun place to hike anymore. Not with the murdered girl and now also werewolves. He wouldn't be here at all except for Stiles, because as much as Scott loves his best friend he knows that Stiles sometimes can be too stubborn for his own good and when that happens it's up to Scott to set him right.

So this is him. Setting it right.

The Hale House is as charred and unwelcoming as it's ever been. The moment he sees the grey husk of it between the trees Scott jumps off his bike, walks it the rest of the way because this feels like a long shot and he tells himself that if it turns out to be a bust he'll come up with something else. He just has to try. "Derek?" he croaks, and then clears his throat and tries again. "Derek!"

There's nothing but birds chirruping brightly and the swish of the wind through the trees, and Scott sighs and is about to turn around when Derek just, like, _appears_. Stiles was totally right. The guy is creepy. "Are you," Scott asks, his eyes skimming along the dilapidated structure of the old Hale house, "are you like, actually _living_ here?"

Derek fixes him with that flat, unblinking stare. "What do you want, Scott?" 

Right. He's here with a purpose. Steeling himself, Scott leans his bike against a tree and hedges a bit closer to what used to be a front porch. "I'm here about Stiles," he says, doing his best to sound confident and determined. He's pretty determined but the truth is Derek Hale basically scares the crap out of him. Not, like, literally though, because that would be gross but … 

Derek rolls his eyes. "What _about_ Stiles?"

"He needs your help."

A dark eyebrow jerks upward. "Then why isn't he here himself?"

"Uh," Scott toes at the ground, his thumbs tucked in the straps of his backpack and tries to find a tactful way to put this so that Derek doesn't get offended and say 'no' just on principal. "He doesn't trust you?" Both eyebrows are pretty much threatening to crawl right off of Derek's head and Scott realizes he's not doing so well with the convincing. 

Man, if their positions were reversed Stiles would do this for him, and he'd probably be a lot better at it. "Look, can you blame him? I mean, you've been sort of going out of your way to be creepy." Derek huffs, exasperated and crosses his arms and Scott can feel this chance slipping away but he can't stop the words that are just spewing out of his mouth. 

"I saved his life."

"D'you seriously think I would be here if you hadn't?"

"I've been trying to help!"

"Yeah, well. No offense, but you kinda suck at it." Scott blinks, opens and closes his mouth a few times because, oh crap, he hadn't meant to say that out loud. "What I _mean_ is, Stiles needs more help than you've been giving him. He went through his first full moon chained to his radiator trying to pretend that he wasn't freaking out. I'm pretty sure he's just making everything up as he goes along."

Derek's eyebrows crawl up his forehead, his expression clearly saying, 'oh, you _think?_ ' Scott jerks his eyebrows up too because, yeah, that's what he thinks, but he also thinks that it's totally unfair that Stiles has to do that when Derek is right here. "Intervening with the hunters one time doesn't make up for all the times that he keeps having to figure things out on his own!"

"He seems to be coping okay," Derek says grudgingly. "He knew better than to play in the lacrosse game, and he managed the full moon with your help."

"Me?" Scott asks, maybe screeches a little. "I'm practically useless! I tried to think of how to help and this is all I could come up with!" he waves his hands at the burnt-out husk of a house, at Derek looking totally broody and unhelpful. Then he actually registers what Derek just said. "Wait … have you been following him?"

"I've been keeping an eye on him." Derek says it like the phrasing is important, as if hanging out around the lacrosse pitch and apparently, also around Stiles' house is somehow less creepy because there was potentially a legitimate reason for him to be there. Scott wonders if Stiles would feel relieved at all to know that if he'd ever genuinely lost control Derek was close at hand to hold him back. Probably not so much.

And then a more important thought occurs to him. "Wait, does he _know_ you've been lurking around?"

Derek shrugs. "He would have been able to sense me, if he wanted to." 

It makes him wonder if Stiles knew and just never told him, but then he dismisses it. Stiles has said more than once that when he's at school most of his focus goes into shutting down his super-senses, and if Derek was around during the full moon well, Stiles had a lot of other things to think about.

Either way, that doesn't really change anything. Stiles needs help and there's no one else that Scott can think of because outside of Stiles, Derek is the only other werewolf he knows. "Stiles needs a teacher. He handles things better when he's got more information, when he at least has some idea what to expect."

"And you want me to teach him?"

"You have any other suggestions?" Derek very clearly does not, which is maybe a little disappointing if only because Scott knows he's going to get in big trouble when Stiles figures out what he's done. "It's in your best interest, anyway, right?" Derek crosses his arms and scowls, and maybe Scott just sort of made that up but now that he thinks about it, yeah. This is absolutely in Derek's best interest. "He could wolf-out in the middle of school, and then what would happen? You're trying to avoid the hunters, but what do you think would happen if the whole town found out about werewolves?"

Derek rolls his eyes, shakes his head like he finds Scott amusing. "Fine. I'll teach him what I know."

_________________________________________

Scott wants Stiles to live a normal life and do normal teenager things like play lacrosse so well that he becomes team captain (so Jackson can go suck it) and maybe start dating Lydia Martin (and Stiles isn't gonna lie, that would be pretty awesome, he'd be down with that). Stiles just has no idea how to make any of that happen since he is decidedly no longer a normal teenager.

Scott isn't much help in that area, either. Stiles has tested out a few acrobatic stunts and, while he's totally proven the super-healing thing he has not managed to consciously move with the effortless agility that comes to him when his vision has hazed-over and he's given in to his wolf. In fact, the more he tries to concentrate, the less graceful he seems to be.

"I just don't get it," Scott says as they head out of school. "On the pitch sometimes, like that day when you did that flip? I mean, that was _awesome_. How can you do something like that and still be such a spazz?" 

On their way out of history class Stiles may or may not have caught his foot on his chair, tripped and rearranged an entire row of desks as he flailed his way to the ground, simultaneously spilling the contents of his opened backpack (okay, he totally did all of that, but it's not like he's proud of it). He shakes his head and sighs. "I dunno, man."

"Well, you _have_ to figure this out, Stiles! Coach is getting impatient with your arm in that sling already, and you can't lose first line. You just _can't_."

Stiles rolls his eyes. Scott has always had a thing about lacrosse, he'd insisted that they try out (and then keep trying out until they made the team). Stiles remembers a tragic summer where all Scott had wanted to do had been practice, "This is the year, Stiles. This is the year we make the team." It had to be lacrosse because that was the most popular sport at Beacon Hills High, and Scott had somehow developed this fantasy that they would make the team and then suddenly become, like, different people or something.

Stiles had humored his friend because, he's not gonna lie, it would be pretty awesome to play lacrosse and kick ass and have Lydia fall madly in love with him, but Stiles is a realist. Right now the reality is that he's a werewolf who goes mental when his blood is up, which means he probably shouldn't participate in competitive sports. Not maiming and/or killing people is more important than his (somewhat dubious) fantasy of becoming a popular lacrosse athlete. 

After the semi-talk during Thursday's practice he'd figured that Scott understood that, but if anything Scott seems more determined than ever. Like he can force Stiles' wolf into submission through sheer force of will. 

"This is everything we've been hoping for since we started high school," Scott is saying. "And it is _isn't fair_ that we get this close to all the things we've ever wanted and then just – not get to have them."

Stiles scrunches his face. "This isn't just about lacrosse, is it?"

"No, okay? This is everything! You deserve to have a _life_ okay? I just –"

"Wow, hey, it's okay buddy. Come here, hug it out." Stiles drapes his arms over his friend's shoulders and pats Scott's back when his friend drops his forehead down to rest at the crook of Stiles' neck. A group of girls passing by coo and giggle and Stiles leers and nods and those fond smiles turn to judgmental glares. Sometimes girls are baffling.

"I'm actually trying here, you know?" Stiles says when Scott refuses to budge. "I don't actually _want_ to be like this. It would be nice not to have to worry about tearing your throat out just because you annoy me, okay?"

"I know," Scott answers, but he sounds grudging. 

He stands back a second later, and Stiles rests his hands on Scott's shoulders and gives him a shake. "You believe me, right?"

"I know you're trying," Scott says as they fall back into step. "I just think that maybe this is something that you can't do by yourself, you know?"

"Yeah, well, it's not like there's a 'lycanthropy for beginners' class I can take."

"Not a class," Scott hedges. "But maybe a teacher."

He glances over and yup, Scott's giving him a meaningful look while also attempting to appear totally innocent. Stiles gapes for a second because, he can't even – _seriously?_ "Who _Derek?_ " Scott looks at him, the 'yeah, dude, Derek' writ plain on his face and, no, Stiles has no choice, he smacks the back of Scott's head hoping that it will jog some sense into that obviously addled brain. The 'thwap' is audible, even without his super-hearing. "Are you out of your _freaking mind?_ " 

" _Ow!_ " Scott cries, rubbing the spot. "Dude, that hurt."

Stiles is opening his mouth, whether to taunt his friend or explain yet again why speaking to Derek Hale is a bad idea, but at that precise moment they push through the front doors of the school and a sleek black Camaro pulls up right by the curb with its window rolled down. 

The guy is wearing aviator sunglasses but it's not like that makes it any less obvious that it's Derek Hale (speak of the devil). He leans across the passenger seat and opens the door. "Get in."

Stiles looks from Derek to the open door of the car, then turns an accusing glare on his friend. "Oh no. Scott, _what did you do?_ " 

Scott, the traitor, gives Stiles a nudge that almost sends him somersaulting down the school steps. "It's gonna be okay. I _promise_."

"Wha-- you can't—" Stiles sputters. "I just—" he reaches out, his fingers tensed as he simulates crushing something, ideally Scott's head, and then points significantly at his best friend. No, screw that, Scott has totally been demoted, Stiles no longer has a best friend. "When they find my body in the woods you're gonna feel really stupid!"

Scott just pats his shoulder. "Good luck, buddy."

"I hate you," Stiles mutters darkly as he continues down the steps. "When this is over," he says to Derek, climbing into the car. "If I'm still alive. You better bring me back here to collect my Jeep." Derek doesn't say a word, just peels out of the school parking lot.

Stiles spends the first half of the trip muttering darkly about so-called best-friends and betrayal and then, once he figures out that they're on their way to the old Hale House, he changes to muttering darkly about creepy werewolves who abduct people and take them out into the woods for nefarious purposes.

"I can hear you," Derek growls. "And I'm not kidnapping you, I'm trying to _teach_ you."

"Oh dude," Stiles says, sliding back to sit properly in the passenger seat. "Are you gonna be my Yoda?"

"No," Derek bites out as he pulls the car to a stop. "I am not." 

Stiles shrugs obligingly, hops out of the car the moment it's stopped and slams the door. "Okay, Mr. Miyagi. Where do we start?" He gets a glare for his efforts but he feels mostly undeterred. 

Derek starts off by asking him what he's managed to figure out, which leads to a crash-course on wolfsbane and how it sucks so much more than his self-education via black-and-white movie ever led him to believe. Somehow that segues into pack dynamics, which leads to Derek flashing his red eyes and pointing at his chest and then at Stiles as he explains, very slowly, "I’m an alpha, you're a beta. You have to listen to me." 

"Sure, that's gonna happen," Stiles says. "So what, if you're not an alpha then you're automatically a beta? Man, werewolf packs are so much less complicated than actual wolves."

Derek has been looking progressively more constipated throughout this impromptu lesson. "is that what the eyes mean? Like I figured mine were yellow because my eyes were brown, but is that like, a beta thing?" 

Derek isn't a very patient teacher, and he definitely is not a believer in the whole 'there's no such thing as a stupid question'. Apparently there are in fact stupid questions, and those would be any question that Stiles asks. It doesn't stop Stiles from asking them, it just means he's becoming very well acquainted with Derek's special bitch-face.

It's not really all that helpful. Mostly their sitting on the charred front porch, talking about the wonderful world of werewolfdom. "So what about this other wolf, then?" Stiles asks. "What do you know about him?"

Turns out, Derek doesn't know a whole lot. "Whatever he was before, he's be an alpha now."

Alphas are stronger than betas. Stiles was really hoping that the other werewolf was some kind of new, lower class of werewolf that was just pitifully weak because then maybe they would stand a chance against him. "How can you be sure?"

"Because that's how it works. You kill an alpha, you take their power."

"Is that how you … you know …?" Stiles points in the general direction of his own eyes. Derek doesn't say anything but the expression on his face is the only answer Stiles needs. "That's great, that's excellent," he says scrubbing his hands over his face. "So that's what we are, then. We're just naturally bloodthirsty, mindless, killing machines."

"No."

"No?" Stiles echoes, incredulous.

"We can control it."

"How? Because, I gotta tell you, Derek, I've been trying and it just keeps _happening_."

"The wolf is a _part_ of you. Its instinct is to fight where normally you might want to back-off."

"Yeah, I _noticed_ ," Stiles mutters.

Derek continues, completely ignoring him. "That doesn't have to be a bad thing. It just means you have to learn how to keep it in check."

"Okay. So how do you do that, exactly?"

"You find an anchor, something meaningful to you," Derek says. "Lock yourself to it, and don't let it go."

"Right, an anchor. Makes sense." Stiles nods. Then he frowns. "Like what sort of anchor?"

Derek's jaw flexes like he doesn't want to answer any of these questions. "For me, it's anger."

"Anger? Isn't that exactly what you're trying to avoid? Like, doesn't concentrating on how angry you are just make your wolf even more angry?" Derek raises his eyebrows. "Okay well then explain it to me! How does that even work?"

"It's different for everyone."

Stiles throws his hands in the air, pushing off from the porch so he can pace out his frustration. "This is so not helpful."

Derek grimaces. Stiles can't tell if it's because he's actually constipated, because he finds Stiles irritating, or if that's just the face he makes when he's trying to think. "What's your anchor?"

Stiles shrugs. "I don't want to hurt anyone, so I think about that."

Derek seems as baffled by this as Stiles felt when Derek had explained his own anchor. "O-kay."

"What?" Stiles asks, defensive. "It's been working for me just fine. Better than _anger_."

"Fine! Whatever works for you."

"But it doesn't work all the time! I focus on it and it brings me back, but that doesn't stop it from happening. If I lose focus, even for just a second, I go all," he curls his fingers into claws and holds them up by his head, making a growly face to illustrate his point.

Derek gives a long-suffering sigh. "That's going to keep happening. It's like I said. The wolf is a part of you and it's not going to go away. But if your anchor fails, there's always pain."

"Pain?" Derek reaches out, grabs Stiles's left wrist where it's been hanging in the sling and twists it. "Holy god!" Stiles yelps as he feels the bone actually breaking. "You just broke my arm! What is your freaking damage?"

"It'll heal," Derek says, releasing his hold. "You feel more clear-headed, am I right?"

"Are you trying to turn me into some kind of emo-cutter to control my inner wolf? What the fuck is this? You know what, this has been great but so far you haven't told me much of anything that I haven't figured out for myself and, you know, mostly you're just making everything so much worse so …" 

" _Stiles!_ " Derek growls, and Stiles doesn't even have to turn and look to know the werewolf's eyes have flashed red, he can feel a faint tug at his core, like some part of himself wants to stop and listen to Derek even if the rest of Stiles is deadest on getting out (while he's still alive, thanks!)

" _No!_ " Stiles snaps, spinning around and striding back, jabbing a finger into Derek's chest. "Don't do that! Don't pull your alpha-shit on me, okay? Don't you _dare!_ "

Derek jerks back, looks startled by Stiles' vehemence. "Fine," he says, however grudgingly. "But like it or not, we need one another, Stiles."

"We really don't."

"Werewolves are stronger as a pack. _Literally_ stronger."

"Newsflash! I don't trust you. You practically just admitted that you killed someone, maybe you've killed loads of someone's. I'm not down with that, and I'm _definitely_ not down with helping you power-up your werewolf mojo. We're not pack. Period."

"What about the other alpha? You think your dad can just arrest him?"

Stiles whirls around. "No, I know he can't! Which means I have to come up with an ingenious plan to bring the alpha down myself, _and_ figure out how to keep the sheriff's department out of it, all while keeping my wolf in check. Since you don't seem to have any helpful suggestions, I better get back to the old drawing board."

"We need to work together."

"We really _really_ don't." He crosses his arms over his chest, glares pointedly at Derek and then the Camaro and says, "Now are you driving me back to school or what?"

_________________________________________

The first time Scott went over to Allison's house to study Stiles gave him strict instructions not to 'squander this colossal opportunity', but it's become sort a regular thing now and every so often they manage to actually look over their notes and open their textbooks. Scott's grades have sort of been slipping because he usually studies with Stiles but it's sort of like their schedules don't synch-up as much anymore. Stiles says, "What about Monday" and Scott says, "Monday's good" but then at lunch Lydia talks him into a double date because apparently Allison is her best-friend, which means Scott hangs out with Lydia and Jackson a lot. "Sorry man," Scott says and Stiles always shakes his head, "No worries. Girlfriend trumps studying. Rain check."

Whenever they do manage to get together, considering Stiles is dealing with the whole 'werewolf' thing, Scott feels a bit silly coming over and talking about chemistry or history or whatever, so when he's done talking about Allison they talk about werewolves, which usually leads to them performing weird experiments (like the time they tried to see if Stiles could beat his hot dog eating record now). "It's for science," Stiles had said as he boiled a huge pot of hot dogs. "I mean, maybe it's not just super-healing. Maybe I have a whole super-physique and a super-metabolism."

Anyway, the point is that it's Thursday, which means Scott spent the entire evening with Allison, and they were making out for most of it and whatever else he's been worrying about (Stiles' control issues, the math test tomorrow, his history essay, the fact that there's a murderer out there who bit Stiles and may or may not come back for a second helping) Scott can't help but feel generally optimistic as he hops down the staircase of Allison's house, his backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Hey," she says, linking her fingers into his as they stand by the front door. "I'm gonna come to the game on Saturday."

Scott's grin stretches a little wider. "You don't have to," he says, rolling a shoulder back in a shrug. "I'm probably not gonna play at all."

"That's doesn't matter, to me." She leans over and presses her lips to his. "I'm still gonna be there."

"Okay. Good. Me too." It makes her laugh, bubbly and bright, and he kisses her again (and then once more because once he starts it's hard to stop) and then bounces out her front door and down the steps where he pauses to wave at her. He's still grinning when he gets onto his bike and keeps on grinning right up until he climbs the stairs in his own house and finds out what's waiting for him in his bedroom.

Derek is sitting on his desk chair, swiveling it back and forth like maybe he's been waiting a while (which makes Scott wonder exactly how long Derek has been chilling in his room). "How did you get in here?" he demands after he gets through his minor heart attack.

Derek pointedly glances in the direction of the bedroom window, which Scott always leaves open because sometimes his mom locks the front door and Stiles needs to get in somehow. "Right," Scott says, marches over to close and lock the window.

When he turns back around Derek is giving him this pained sort of grimacing look, and Scott has been around Stiles and his new werewolf nose enough to realize what the problem is. With an exaggerated huff he grabs his laundry hamper, hefts it up and carries out into the hallway. "Better?"

Derek's eyes shift pointedly toward Scott's wastepaper basket and Scott flushes bright red. "Crap, seriously?" He hastens to carry that out as well (flushes the incriminating Kleenexes down the toilet and then sprays the bathroom with air freshener just to be safe. It's a wonder Stiles hasn't bitched about it but he supposes even as close as they are, they have their boundaries. 

Armed with the bottle of air freshener Scott returns to his room and sprays liberally. When he's done he smacks the can down onto his desk and glares. "Happy now?" Derek sneezes. Scott crosses his arms and glares. "What are you _doing_ here?" 

"It's not working," Derek answers. "Your friend is stubborn, obnoxious and uncooperative, and there's no point in my trying to teach him if he refuses to listen to anything I say."

"Stiles isn't that bad." The look Derek offers suggests very plainly: 'you want to bet?' 

Actually, Scott can imagine just how bad Stiles probably was. So far the majority of Stiles's theories regarding the alpha that turned him and the murdered girl invariably circle back to Derek being involved, even if his most convincing argument thus far is: "I don't trust that guy, Scott. There's something about him…"

Sighing, Scott drops onto his bed. "Look, you just need to find a way to convince him to cooperate. He doesn't know you and he's a little off-balance lately which, come on, can you blame him?"

"Offering to show him how to control the shift isn't incentive enough?"

Scott opens his mouth, loses the thread of what he wants to say and shuts it again. He sighs. "He's used to dealing with things on his own, okay? And he's actually pretty good at it, mostly… but this time." This time the problem at hand is just so far beyond the realm of their experience and the consequences for messing up are about one hundred times more dire. Plus, it's not like Scott has much to contribute. He doesn't know when to hold his friend back and when to shove him forward, when to trust Stiles' instincts and when to tell him that something doesn't seem like a good idea, because he _doesn't know anything about werewolves_. Scott feels mostly like moral support, but he's got this sense that he's not doing a good job of that because Stiles is mostly concentrating on not scaring him away or something, which is ridiculous. As if Scott would ever go anywhere without his best friend.

"Look," he says. "Stiles deserves to have a life, okay? But if that's gonna happen, he's gonna need help from someone who knows about werewolves."

Derek gives this totally exaggerated, longsuffering sigh. "Is this about lacrosse?"

"No!" Scott says, but then has to admit. "It's not _just_ about lacrosse." Derek looks like he's maybe not entirely convinced, but it doesn't matter either way. Scott has decided that this needs to happen, so he steels himself. "Maybe you should try appealing to his logic."

"Appeal to Stiles' logic." Derek separates each word, draws them out in this way that makes it perfectly clear that he thinks Scott has lost his mind or something. Scott nods sharply and Derek huffs. "This is ridiculous."

"Look," Scott says. "Stiles told me what you said about pack. Maybe he blew you off, and maybe you're pissed about that, but whether either of you admit it or not, you both know that other alpha is going to come back." He sighs. "Stiles is my best friend, Derek, but there's only so much I can do. Please."

_________________________________________

"I'm here! I'm home! Sorry!" Stiles calls as he closes the front door, takes his backpack off and flings it in the general direction of the stairs, he tosses his keys on the little table where his dad always puts the mail, all the while explaining why he almost missed the enforced curfew: "I had to finish that lab with Danny, and I then I had to pick up some books from the library and then Scott needed a ride home because otherwise he wasn't going to make curfew so I had to drive over to Allison's house which …"

"Dinner's almost ready!" His dad calls from the direction of the kitchen and Stiles changes course to go and greet him properly.

"Hey D—erek." He'd meant to say 'dad'. He meant to say, 'Hey dad' and collapse into his chair at the table and commence a totally normal, relaxed dinner but that obviously isn't gonna happen because freaking Derek Hale is sitting there at the table wearing a button-down shirt, doing a pretty convincing job of appearing respectable. 

Their impromptu staring competition is cut-short when his dad pokes his head out from the kitchen. "Help me get this out to the table."

"Uh. Sure." Stiles narrows his eyes pointedly at Derek and then hurries into the kitchen. "What is he doing here?" he hisses. 

His dad, because Stiles had to inherit his subtlety from somewhere, leans back to look out the open door where Derek is pretending not to be able to hear everything that they are pseudo-whispering at each other. "I invited him. He had some interesting things to say when he stopped by my office this afternoon."

"Stopped by your—" Stiles rubs a hand over his face and gestures emphatically in the direction of the dining room. "Do you _know_ who that is?"

"Yes." His dad stretches the word out, like he thinks Stiles is the one who is being ridiculous. He smacks the oven mitts against Stiles' chest and then takes a covered corning ware dish filled with steamed vegetables and thrusts it into Stiles' now-covered hands. "Put this out on the table, would you?"

Stiles makes a face that he hopes conveys the extreme levels of frustration, irritation and discomfort that he is currently feeling and then marches out to the table where he glares at Derek and drops the dish somewhat forcefully onto the waiting trivet. Derek looks more amused than anything, but this may be the result of the over-sized comic oven-mitts that Stiles is wearing as he does this, which look like a shark has swallowed half of his arm (a novelty gift he had got for his dad on father's day). 

Undeterred, Stiles continues to glare as he returns to the kitchen. "Are you aware that there is currently a _werewolf_ sitting at the table?" His dad is stirring something in a big pot; Stiles suspects it is something pasta-related because that's pretty much all his dad can cook, unless he's using his barbecue. 

"I am. Just like I am also aware that there is a werewolf currently in my kitchen. Did you see, are there spoons on the table?"

"Low blow, dad," Stiles says as he glances out to the table where there are no spoons, and one broody-looking werewolf wearing a freaking button-down shirt masquerading as a normal person. "No spoons."

"Well _set out the spoons_. Sheesh. Do I have to do everything around here?"

"Dad, this is important! What was he doing at the station? Did he threaten you?"

"I'm the Sheriff, son." Which is so not even an answer to the question, but his dad is looking mulish and glancing pointedly at the cutlery drawer so Stiles picks out three spoons and marches back out to the dining room.

"What are you _doing_ here?" he snarls at Derek.

Derek gives him an innocent look that fools no one. "Your dad invited me to dinner."

"Why were you talking to my dad, at all?"

"Stiles!" his dad calls from the kitchen.

"Coming!" he answers, trying to sound chipper and friendly, flashes a menacing look at his unwanted guest and returns to the kitchen. "Make him go away."

"Okay, I will," his dad says. "If you can explain to me what you were doing jumping off of our roof the other day."

"Wha—" Stiles opens and closes his mouth, puffs out his cheeks as he tries to come up with an explanation that doesn't sound crazy and then settles on what is, to him, the most important thing. "How do you know about that?"

His dad rolls his eyes. "Deputy Andrews saw you when she was on shift."

"I was – it was just …" he growls in frustration and narrows his eyes accusingly at his father. "You know, sometimes I feel like you accepted the job as sheriff just so you could officially order all the regional police to spy on me!"

"Sometimes it feels like it takes me and all the regional police just to keep you out of trouble! Now sit down at the table, dinner's ready."

Stiles growls again and stomps back to his seat, which he yanks out forcefully leaving four nail-shaped gouges in the wood. Immediately he clamps down on his agitation, glancing guiltily to his dad who is carrying out the bowl of pasta. When he looks across the table Derek is watching him carefully. Stiles distracts himself by reaching for the vegetables.

"This looks good, Sheriff Stilinski," Derek says as he dishes out noodles and meatballs onto his plate.

"Thank-you," dad says, totally preening. He looks pointedly over at Stiles as if to say, 'see? Remember what good manners are? Why can't you have manners like that?' Stiles grunts, which makes his dad roll his eyes even if he doesn't seem all that surprised. "I made vegetables this time," his dad says, gesturing at the corning ware dish with his fork.

"It only counts if you eat some of it," Stiles points out, stares at his dad until the man grudgingly reaches for the vegetables and spoons out a helping. Stiles keeps staring. His dad takes another heaping spoonful and sighs like no one in the world could possibly understand how much he suffers. Stiles aims a pointed glance across the table where Derek freaking Hale is sitting twirling his noodles onto his fork. Stiles has no idea when he entered the Twilight Zone but he'd seriously like to leave it now. Any time. Really.

Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. He eats his entire dinner in near-silence, his eyes bouncing back and forth between his dad and Derek, who are chatting together a bit formally and maybe a little awkwardly, but only in that 'we're getting to know each other' sort of way. Not in the: there is a totally suspicious creeper-werewolf inexplicably dining at my table sort of way. Disturbingly, both his dad and Derek seem to be getting along.

After dinner, Derek actually stands up and helps clear away the dishes, or he would if Stiles didn't rush over and steal the plates from him and proceed to carry them off because there's just no way he's leaving Derek alone with his dad anymore than has apparently already happened. 

Dishes cleared, Stiles grabs hold of Derek's arm and calls back, "Dad, we're going upstairs!"

"Okay!" his dad calls back. Stiles is just relieved the man doesn't tack on 'have fun'.

When he gets to his room, Stiles slams the door closed by shoving Derek against it. Then he takes a moment to stare at his hand, which is pressed against the buttons of Derek's shirt because, holy shit, he physically shoved Derek Hale against his door. He was like, totally strong enough to shove a dude as ripped as Derek Hale around! Werewolf-powers: so. Freaking. Awesome.

Derek does not look anywhere near impressed with Stiles' strength. He glances pointedly down at Stiles' hand and then back up at Stiles, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead as he glares, his eyes flashing red. Stiles holds his hands up and steps back. "Yep. Right. Totally letting go." 

Reality catches up to him as Derek starts to move away from the door, and Stiles darts back in, slamming him back against the door as he demands, "What are you doing here? Did you threaten my dad? If you ever do anything to my dad I'll kill you."

"I didn't threaten your father," Derek says sounding entirely exasperated, like dealing with Stiles and Stiles' shit is just so far beneath him that he should be getting paid to be standing here listening to this. Come on! Stiles totally just fed this bastard!

Or, well. _Stiles_ didn't feed Derek, but Derek like, ate food that came from Stiles' pantry, that Stiles actually went grocery shopping to get now that he thinks about it so yeah, yeah he _did_ totally just feed Derek Hale. "You're in my house!" Stiles prompts when Derek continues to stand there looking bored and broody.

"I want to see what you'd do." Something of the confusion that Stiles is experiencing must show on his face because Derek continues, "When another werewolf entered your territory."

"This was a test?" Stiles wonders aloud, stepping back.

"You handled yourself surprisingly well. Your control is better than I expected."

"Hold on, was that a compliment?"

Derek raises his eyebrows. "Maybe it was. But if you think that means that you can handle any of this on your own, you're kidding yourself. There's more to being a werewolf than controlling the shift." Of course Stiles was an idiot to think that the compliment (which, that totally was one!) wouldn't be somehow backhanded. He crosses his arms and glares, and Derek just glares right back. "The alpha that turned you is still out there," and as if that wasn't horrifying enough to think about Derek tacks on, "waiting for you." 

"You think I don't know that?" Stiles asks. "It's all I've been thinking about! Why do you _think_ I've being doing any of this?" He flaps his hand around even as he realizes that Derek probably doesn't know everything involved in the 'this' that Stiles is referring to. It hasn't all be jumping off of rooftops, he's been researching as much as he can, trying to think of strategies and tactics, trying to get a handle on everything he is now so that, whenever the crazy werewolf comes back Stiles won't be at a complete disadvantage. So far he doesn't feel as if anything he has been doing has been helping much.

"You need to know how to work with your strengths to defend the people you care about," Derek says, and just as easy as that all the words just leave Stiles. He gapes because, yes. _Yes! That._ What Derek _just_ said, that's _exactly_ what Stiles has been trying to do, and all Scott has been saying is that he's acting crazy and probably going to break his own neck, and all Stiles can think is that he'd rather break _his own_ neck than let some psycho werewolf break _Scott's_.

"And," Derek continues, like he isn't aware of the unsteadying wave of relief and gratitude that Stiles is feeling just because Derek seems to understand. "Until you are able to do that, I can help. Stiles, I can help you."

Stiles swallows thickly. "Help me how?"

"I can teach you. Not just how to control the shift, but how to use your strengths to your advantage, how to fight, and I can help you protect the people you care about. Your dad? Scott? Your friends?"

"Why? Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm an alpha, and you're a brand new beta with no idea what you can do and you're probably going to get yourself killed or worse, expose us to the hunters or the rest of the town. And because whoever he is, that alpha killed my sister and I can't find him without your help."

"So," Stiles hedges. "This isn't out of the goodness of your heart." Derek quirks an eyebrow at him and Stiles grins. "Surprisingly, that makes me feel a lot better." He holds out his hand, and they shake on it.

_________________________________________

Stiles always begins their Skype conversations with some new antic. This time when Scott logs on Stiles' face is there waiting for him, his fingers steepled beneath his chin and he's glaring, the lights in his room are off and his eyes are glowing amber-yellow. "What the fuck?" Scott asks.

"I know what you did, Scott," Stiles begins, his voice raspy and low and totally menacing. 

Scott actually shivers because it sounds predatory and evil, even though he knows that this is his best friend, that Stiles would never hurt him. "Uh. What did I do?"

The screen blurs dark as Stiles moves, and then a second later he must turn on a desk lamp or something because when he settles back in his chair his eyes aren't glowing and the room is brighter. "I know you sicced Derek Hale on me, dickwad. Again."

"Oh, that. Yeah," Scott admits. He doesn't feel guilty because it was something that had to be done and Stiles sure as hell wasn't gonna do it. "How did it go?"

"How did it go?" Stiles gapes. "He showed up at my _house,_ man! My dad fed him dinner. He was wearing a freaking button-down. It was totally weird."

Scott waits but Stiles doesn't say anything more. "That's it?"

"No." Stiles rubs a hand over the back of his neck and then sighs, shakes his head so he looks a bit like a dog shaking off water. "He said he was gonna help me keep my dad out of trouble and, you know, you and your mom and stuff. He's gonna teach me, and all he wants in exchange is for me to help him track the alpha. Apparently I'm like, connected to him or something, because he's the one that turned me."

"Huh." Scott cocks his head to the side, considering. "You know. It doesn't _sound_ like Derek's such a bad guy…"

"Shut up! I still don't trust him. But… you know. Thanks. I mean, I'm basically getting a teacher for free because I've already been tracking the other alpha so…"

"So what you're saying is, I kinda saved your ass."

"I wouldn't go that far," Stiles argues. "I had it under control. I mean, maybe my experiments looked unorthodox to you, _a mere human_ , but to _me_ , a mighty and invincible werewolf—"

"Bullshit," Scott laughs. "You were jumping off of buildings dude, and hoping for the best. You _owe_ me."

"No way!"

" _Yes_ way!" Scott says. "Lift the ban!"

"No! Absolutely not. Between the hours of nine and six only, that's the deal. That's _seven hour_ s, which is _more_ than enough time. I'm not changing the deal."

"You were never in a million years going to ask Derek for help, which you _needed_. I went out into the creepy woods, to the creepy house to talk to the creepy werewolf _by myself_ because you were being a stubborn idiot. So _yes._ Lift the ban."

"Oh my god!" Stiles groans. Scott grins as the image on his computer screen shows his friend rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm so gonna regret this." He totally knows he's won and his grin is already stretching across his face in triumph before Stiles even says, "Fine, the ban is _temporarily_ lifted!"

" _She's so freaking incredible!_ " Scott gushes because, holy shit, he's been holding that in for so freaking long! (two whole hours!) "She _held my hand_ , and we did school work in her bedroom, on her bed. And we _kissed_ and …" There's a word for how Scott is feeling right now, a perfect word and it is this 'euphoria', because finally ever since school started and Stiles was bitten, he feels like things might actually be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles can vaguely recall a time when he actually _liked_ weekends. That certainly isn't the case anymore because if he isn't running suicides during lacrosse practice or trying to keep himself from forcefully (and permanently) detaching Jackson's head from his shoulders as they scrimmage, then he's being chased through the woods, or through the industrial end of town, and sometimes even through his own neighborhood.

"Derek's worse than freaking Pai Mei!" Stiles complains via Skype. "He's all: 'You failed, you're incompetent, I can't believe you can't pat your head and rub your tummy and flap your wings, and explode this brick wall with your laser eyes!'"

On the screen, Scott scrunches his nose up. "Do werewolves have wings? Or laser eyes?"

"That's my point! His demands are unreasonable! And then I inevitably fail and he's all: 'Rise and let me look at your stupid face!' and then goes on about how I'm a total mess and wonders if I can do _anything_ right except talk, which he won't let me do by the way, because he claims we're practicing 'stealth', which is _bullshit_ because have you ever heard him stomping around in the woods? It's basically the _least_ stealthy thing of all time! I mean leather makes a sound, okay? It's all…creaky or whatever."

"So wait, you have to be silent for the whole lesson?"

"Lesson," Stiles scoffs. "As if there is any structure in the shit he pulls. He mostly starts beating me up the moment I step out of the Jeep, and when he's not beating me up, he's chasing me around. He pounced on me, Scott, when I was coming out of school for my spare period."

"You told me." Scott sounds long-suffering but if Stiles has to sit and listen to his best friend wax poetic about Allison's silky hair and satin skin and perfect laugh, then Scott can damned well sit and listen to the absolute horror that is Derek Hale because hey, all of this? Totally Scott's fault.

"As in _pounced_. Literally _pounced_. On _me_."

"I get it. He pounced."

"He dropped out of _nowhere_ , Scott. It's all very old-school Clouseau-Kato, except I mostly just get my ass handed to me, like, _all the time_."

"But you are getting better, right?"

Stiles fiddles with a mechanical pencil as he rolls his eyes. "I presented the argument we worked on and Derek wasn't exactly happy but you know, when is Derek ever 'happy'. Probably not ever. Anyway, I basically told him how practices have gone and that I wanted to try playing an actual game and he could try and stop me if he wanted, and he threw me against the trunk of a tree and growled a little but end result: I think I'm actually going to play in a lacrosse game."

Scott honest-to-god wriggles in his desk chair. "That's so awesome!"

"I knew you'd be excited about that, buddy." Stiles hears a familiar motor nearing his house and sighs. "I gotta go. Derek's here."

"What? Why's he there?" 

An exasperated huff is not adequate to convey Stiles' feelings on this point, so he starts clicking at the pencil in his hand. "Because Derek spilled all the werewolf-hunter crap to my dad _and then_ he said that he wanted to help and so my dad thinks Derek's my werewolf-tutor, which he kinda is, but that means he keeps inviting Derek over to talk about my progress and shit. What's worse, they actually _get along_. Derek calls my dad 'sir', it's weird, and unsettling."

"O-kay, I get it." The tone of Scott's voice clearly indicates that he does not, in fact, 'get it'. Stiles doesn't blame him. "But why does _Derek_ go along with it?"

The lead slides loose from the pencil and Stiles tosses it across his desk. "It's all part of the deal we made, remember I told you? Derek has to babysit my dad and you and your mom and everyone, to make sure you're safe. So basically he shadows my dad around a lot, and then, since the guy is _right_ there, my dad is all: come to dinner! And Derek says 'yes' because he wants to make sure my dad doesn't banish him from lurking around the station or something, thus ending our arrangement."

"That's … totally strange."

Stiles points accusingly at his computer screen. "It's all on you! All of this?" he circles his hand around to indicate 'everything', "All _your_ fault, buddy."

"Yeah, but you're first line and going to actually play in a game, so I'm not feeling all that guilty." He shrugs. 

Stiles cocks his head to the side. "Hey, I just remembered I actually hate you. Now I've got to go have dinner with someone who _pounces_ on innocent students!"

"Have fun!" Stiles flips him off but Scott has already signed-out so he doesn't see it. He spins around in his desk chair idly, listening as his dad lets Derek into the house and explains that dinner is almost done.

There's the sound of footfalls on the staircase and a moment later a sharp knock on his door. Derek barges through before Stiles can even invite him in. "Your dad said ten more minutes before dinner. What have you got?"

"Dude, seriously, knocking is a step in the right direction but try _waiting_ to be invited." Derek stares at him, eyebrows raised, and Stiles throws his hands up in surrender. He spins back to his desk to grab the folder he's been keeping, thrusting it out to the other werewolf before nodding to his bedroom wall. "Not much, what you see is pretty much what I've got." He's taken up one wall of his room with news clippings, photographs and maps, connected with colored thread because working out of a notebook is all well and good, but sometimes Stiles needs to be able to interact with information in order to get a better handle on it.

Derek flips through the folder quickly and then shifts over to the wall. There are clippings up there about the Hale fire, and Stiles is suddenly acutely aware them, has a strange urge to throw his body in front of them and pretend they're not there. Maybe it's nothing, it's probably nothing, but Stiles doesn't have a whole lot of information to work with, which means he's courting every possible coincidence he can find and Derek returning to Beacon Hills, the victim being Derek's sister, Stiles being turned so close to the remains of the Hale House, those are a whole bunch of coincidences. He's got questions, so many that sometimes it feels as if he is literally choking on them but Stiles refuses to ask them because even he can tell that Derek is raw about the fire still, reluctant to speak about anything too personal. 

"This is good," Derek says, shifting away from the wall.

"It's barely anything," Stiles admits, spinning his chair around in another quick circle. "I have this horrible feeling, like what we actually need is another brutal murder or newly turned werewolf, because all of that over there is just speculation." He clears his throat. "Sorry."

Derek ignores the apology, which is fine, because Stiles isn't entirely certain he knows what specifically he's sorry for. "Has your dad mentioned anything?"

"My _dad_ is refusing to talk to me about the case." Stiles has a lot of strong feelings about this, mostly various forms and degrees of frustration. "I tried explaining that there was clearly a werewolf connection and so he should probably _talk_ to a werewolf about it but apparently I don't qualify, which I find hurtful."

Derek nods. "I'll talk him. He might have fewer reservations about sharing information with me."

"What, because I'm so untrustworthy?"

Derek looks distinctly unimpressed when he fixes Stiles with a flat stare. "No. Because you're his son."

"Oh." That had actually not even occurred to Stiles. "You think he's trying to protect me? To keep me out of this?" Derek's eyebrows creep even higher on his head and Stiles feels incredibly foolish because yeah, actually that is pretty obvious now that he thinks about it. "Okay, but whatever he says, you'll tell me, right? I mean, if all of that is gonna amount to everything," he gestures to his wall. "I kind need all the details."

"We'll see," Derek grunts and Stiles is opening his mouth to argue but then his dad calls them down for dinner, so instead he tries to ignore how disturbingly normal it feels to tromp down his own staircase in Derek's wake, settling at the table across from him as his dad puts dinner out on the table.

_________________________________________

The paint cans are waiting at the center of a pile of paintbrushes and trays. There's a canvas drop cloth stretched over the beige rug and when Scott closes the door Allison grins and holds out a pair of goggles. "My dad sort of insisted," she explains sheepishly as she settles her own pair onto the bridge of her nose. There are two masks sitting on the covered mass that Scott recognizes as her dresser. "I guess he thinks we might get confused and start a rousing game of paint-ball or something."

"It's fine." Scott puts on the protective goggles. "I helped my mom repaint our living room and I remember I got paint all over my face so these are probably a good idea."

She laughs, soft and warm. "Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it."

"It's no problem. Really."

"You're sacrificing your Sunday to paint my bedroom."

"No," Scott says, shaking his head. "I'm spending my Sunday with you. That's not much of a sacrifice."

"Well here's the first problem." She steps close, her body brushing against his. He can feel the warmth of her through his T-shirt. "How am I supposed to kiss you if we're wearing these masks?" 

Quickly, Scott slides his mask off his face, lets it hang around his neck as he reaches out, tugging hers out of the way as well so he can press his lips to hers. The chaste kiss changes quickly, their mouthes opening to each other until Scott presses his tongue forward and Allison wraps her arms around his shoulders, her fingers combing through the hair at the nape of his neck. It makes him shiver, makes him press his hips against her.

There's a knock on the door and they barely manage to hop apart before Chris Argent pokes his head in. "How's it going in here?"

"It's fine, Dad!" Allison huffs, settling her mask back into place. "We're just getting started."

"Do you need help pouring out the paint?"

"No!" she says. "We're fine!" Chris hesitates in the door for a moment before he steps back, obviously reluctant to go. "I'm so sorry," Allison breathes when her door is closed again. "I think he was upset when I said you were coming over to paint my room with me."

"Is it usually, like, a father-daughter thing?" Scott asks.

"Yeah, usually." She shrugs. "Anyway, we should get started.

It's not that Scott is a fan of painting rooms. It helps that someone, probably Mr. Argent, has already done most of the prep-work, which means all that he and Allison have to worry about is getting the paint on the walls and not splashing too much. Scott's more than a little thankful for the drop-cloth and the goggles because as he's painting the trim he keeps loading his paintbrush up too much and dripping everywhere. Allison laughs at him, streaks a dollop of the creamy-white trim color on his nose. It starts to itch almost immediately but every time Allison looks at him she laughs so Scott doesn't wipe it away.

"You know," she says later, when they're lying on the drop-cloth taking a hard-earned break. "We go out a lot with Lydia and my friends, and we spend time together just you and me, but we never hang out with your friends."

"I don't know if you've noticed, but my friends are basically just Stiles."

She laughs. "I noticed. From what I've seen at lunch he seems…" she scrunches her face up like she's searching for an appropriate word and that makes Scott grin.

"Yeah, he is," he says, and Allison giggles, swats at his arm. 

"I just don't want it to be that we always do whatever I want to do. I'm okay with just hanging out, you know? Doing whatever you and Stiles do."

"Mostly that's play video games and talk about comic books."

"I can do that," Allison says. "Maybe not the comic books because I never got into those, but I can talk about the movies? Is that okay? Is Stiles a hardcore comic book purist?"

Scott laughs. "No. Neither of us is like that."

"Okay then."

He rolls onto his side to face her, propping his head up on his hand. "I'm not keeping you guys apart. It's just, he's really busy lately. Even I haven't had all that much time to hang out with him."

She cants her head to look at him, her expression considering. "Is something wrong?"

He shakes his head. "No it's … he's got a lot of stuff going on, I guess. I just …" he sighs. "I miss him. We used to hang out all the time. We practically lived at each other's houses, you know?"

She smiles, leans up to give him a kiss on the lips. "Hey, he's probably just adjusting to things, right? I mean, if his schedule has changed as much as you say, he's probably just trying to manage it."

"I know," Scott says. "I just really miss him sometimes."

"Hey." She bumps their noses together, wraps a hand around the back of his head to pull him in close. "It'll be okay. And in the meantime, you've got me." Tilting her head, she brushes their lips together. "You've always got me."

_________________________________________

Stiles has been trying to convince his dad to let him play with the polygraph machine since he was about six years old, which is why he'd done a little victory dance when his dad had (somewhat reluctantly) offered the machine as a potential way to work on his control. Stiles is seriously beginning to regret his decision. It's only the third time but it's holding true to the pattern, a series of relatively benign questions followed by the big guns, his dad pretty much trying to catch him out in every lie he's ever told, with a few mortifying questions thrown in just because.

"This is so unfair," he whines as he removes the Velcro cuff around his upper arm. His dad chuckles, and Stiles tries not to glare. "Am I getting better, at least?" he squints at the printout, glaring at the incriminating blips and preening when he notices that, overall, the graph seems more stable than his previous attempt, certainly more than his first effort.

"We'll get there, kiddo." His dad switches off the machine with a sharp click.

"You realize that you're basically teaching me how to lie to you and get away with it. I mean, once I get the hang of this, it's clear-sailing for me."

His dad's chuckle is sort of evil, now that Stiles thinks about it. "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

It's impossible to tell whether the look on his dad's face means that he's just messing with Stiles or that he really is that confident that, polygraph-training or not, Stiles will never be able to successfully fool him. It makes him leery. "Really?"

" _Oh yeah,_ " his dad says, smiling to himself. "You have a tell."

"I do?" Stiles squeaks. "What is it?" His dad refuses to elaborate, just asks if he'd be able to pick up groceries on the way home and hands over his debit card when Stiles agrees. "I don't have a tell!" Stiles calls back over his shoulder as he leaves his dad's office. 

He climbs into his Jeep, sticks his keys in the ignition but doesn't start it. Instead, he pulls his cellphone from his pocket and makes a call. "Hey, can you tell when I lie to you?"

"Stiles, I'm at work man," Scott huffs.

"This is just a super quick question. Just answer it and you can get back to de-balling Fluffy or whatever it is you're doing over there."

"I'm not de-balling anything," Scott argues, and then sighs. "What was the question?"

Stiles rolls his eyes as he repeats, "Can you tell when I lie to you?"

"You've lied to me?"

Now that he thinks about it, Stiles has never actually lied to Scott. He's lied _in front_ of Scott, and _because_ of Scott, but never _to_ Scott. "Uh, no actually." Stiles sighs. "You're so not helpful right now."

"Why were you asking that?"

"My dad says I have a tell, but he won't say what it is."

"Huh. Maybe you like, raise your eyebrows or flare your nostrils or something."

"I don't flare my nostrils, dude, what the hell!" Stiles catches himself flaring his nostrils. It's a fluke; he's doing it just because Scott mentioned it because he's pretty sure he doesn't wander around randomly flaring his nostrils when he's irritated or lying.

"Anyway, I gotta go. I'm sure it's fine, though. You're dad's probably just messing with you." Stiles isn't entirely convinced, but he lets himself be placated and ends the call.

Late night grocery shopping is fun because there's hardly ever anyone in the store, which means that Stiles can surf down the isle with his feet braced on his shopping cart. It also means that he can do things like buy an extra carton of ice cream and pick up chocolate sauce and whipping cream (because who can resist homemade sundaes, certainly not Stiles). He smiles extra wide when the woman at the cash eyeballs the potato chip bags and party pack of M&Ms and asks him critically if he's having a party. 

The parking garage stinks a lot more than Stiles remembers, car exhaust and oil and something damp and mildew and he makes a mental note to never park here again. He'd rather run the risk of being ticketed on the street. Just as he's pulling his keys from his pocket he feels a prickle on the back of his neck, like he's being watched. 

Carefully, Stiles opens the trunk and shoves his groceries inside trying to appear casual as he scans his surroundings out of the corner of his eye. He can't smell anything except the general stink of the garage, and he's not too keen on extending his werewolf senses because he's in the middle of town and if he loses control he could do some serious damage. But there is definitely something lurking around here, and it's got him in its sites.

If he moves quickly, Stiles estimates that he could make it to the front of the Jeep, maybe even manage to get behind the wheel before whatever has just started growling at him can get close. It's going to be a showdown either way, Stiles would prefer to be armed with a moving vehicle because it vastly decreases the chances of whatever is out there drawing blood, and Stiles is all for avoiding any possible maiming.

On the other hand, the growl sounds close, which means he probably won't be able to do much more than start the truck before the thing pounces on his hood, and Stiles does not want to risk his Jeep unnecessarily. He refuses to allow his Jeep to become a needless casualty. So instead he slams the trunk closed and takes off sprinting. If he leads his stalker far enough away he can use his super-wolf powers to jump straight between the parking levels and get back to his truck and get it moving before whatever is out there (odds are it's a werewolf because the hell else would be running around growling at him?). It'll buy him enough time to get behind the wheel and start her up and get moving before the wolf catches up, and Stiles has no problems mowing that thing down if it's a choice between him or it.

Step one, however, is gaining enough distance, and that means moving as fast as he can, which is harder than it sound considering when he glances over his shoulder he sees the wolf running full-out on four legs, and Stiles can't even trust himself to use his wolf-speed. He races down one level and then gets creative, hops up on the hoods of the cars and jumps from hood to hood, leaving a screeching cacophony of car alarms in his wake. When he gets down to the next level he ducks neatly behind a car, counting on the sirens to cover the hammering of his heart. Tipping his head back, he catches his breath as he waits and, sure enough, sees the wolf go racing past a moment later. 

Stiles is on the move again, scrambling onto the roof of the car he'd been hunkering behind, and jumping up to catch-hold of the cement barrier wall and then hoisting himself up. There's a brief second where his body dangles there, fully exposed, but he moves as quickly as he can, and when his feet are firmly planted on the ground again, one level up, he pauses and tries to listen past the wailing alarms. He gets the faint sound of nails clicking on cement and low heavy breaths and then he starts growling, can feel his own wolf pushing forward. Stiles crouches down, digs his nails into the palms of his hands and tries to breath, tries to shove the wolf down again. He's the sheriff's kid, people know him and keep an eye on him and if someone came into the garage and saw him half-shifted they'd call his dad, call the station because that's what always happens. He's recognizable in town, his dad knows almost everyone and they all want to help-out that nice sheriff who's all on his own now with his son. He imagines his dad driving out to see if he's okay and finding the wolf, Stiles' wolf or his attacker, either one could be violent and dangerous. Either one could easily hurt his dad.

Just like that he stops growling, catches his breath enough to peak up over the edge. He has no idea how long he's been hunkered down and what's more, he doesn't know where the other werewolf has gotten of to. Is it close by? He doesn't want to risk listening for it, still can't smell it through the oil and the damp without relying on his abilities and he can't. He can't trust himself.

Carefully, he peaks out from behind a tire and just as he's leaning out, cautiously creeping from his hiding place there's a puff of warm wet air on the back of his neck, and then an all too human and horribly familiar voice says, "Now you're dead."

"Oh Christ," Stiles says, collapsing bonelessly against the cement pavement as the tension rushes out of his body. "I should of fucking _known_ it was you."

Derek's face slides back into its familiar human shape and he glowers. "It doesn't matter whether it was me or not, the result is the same."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm dead. Got it," he waves a hand lazily. "God, you gave me a heart-attack."

"You didn't use your senses at all."

"I tried," Stiles argues, reluctantly scraping himself off the floor. "I almost lost control."

"But you didn't," Derek points out, totally unhelpfully.

"I reigned it in. That's not the point."

"No," Derek says. "The _point_ is, if it were the other alpha here tonight instead of me, you could be dead right now because you tried to suppress your biggest asset."

"You said he didn't want to kill me, though."

Derek rolls his eyes and his whole head follows the movement. "Stiles."

"Fine. Whatever. I'll work on it." Derek doesn't seem entirely appeased. "Hey, I get points for the whole car trick though, right? That was pretty ingenious." He get a raised eyebrow and a sideways glance, which Stiles chooses to interpret as an admittance of his genius. 

He starts heading back to his Jeep when a thought occurs to him. "Hey, do I have a 'tell'?" 

Derek pauses. "What?"

"A 'tell', you know, like something that lets you know I'm lying. But not my heart rate," Stiles rushes to add. "Like something else, something that someone other than just a werewolf could pick-up."

Derek huffs and Stiles isn’t sure but it sounds like he might have been laughing to himself. "Yeah, you do."

"Really? What is it?"

Even when he's not wolfed-out Derek's teeth look sort of pointy and threatening, especially when he's smiling like that. "Your face."

"Oh, ha _ha_ ," Stiles says, rolling his eyes. "Really funny there, _Derek_."

_________________________________________

Scott's in the back of the clinic double-checking all of the kennels when suddenly every single one of the cats starts yowling and hissing and basically going mental. One cranky animal is nothing out of the ordinary. It's a vet clinic, Scott knows he's never seeing any of the animals at their best, but this is excessive, especially as they're all arching their backs and hopping around like freaky Halloween decoration. Scott raises his hands up hoping it's a gesture that the cats are familiar with, 'don't hurt me please'. He backs away cautiously, wondering if he should call Deaton but when he turns to the door he finds Stiles there, giving the cats a suspicious look.

"He-ey, buddy," Stiles drawls, somewhat awkwardly.

"Stiles, hey," Scott greets, glances back at the hissing cats. "Maybe you should …"

"Yeah, okay." Stiles backs out, letting the door close behind him. The cats settle down more or less immediately. Scott checks the dogs, just a few over-nighters recovering from surgery, before he ducks into Deaton's office to grab his things. 

When he comes out to the front desk Stiles shoots him an awkward look, glancing meaningfully at Dr. Deaton, who looks as relaxed as ever. Scott has no idea what Stiles is trying to communicate with him, so he just shrugs and Stiles narrows his eyes and then rolls them dramatically.

Stiles has been by the clinic before, mostly just to pick Scott up or drop him off from work. Now that he thinks about it, he can't ever recall Stiles actually talking to Dr. Deaton but they're both such huge parts of Scott's life that it's strange to realize he's maybe never formally introduced them. "Uh, Stiles this is my boss, Doc Deaton. Doc, this is my best friend, Stiles."

"Yes, Stiles," Deaton says, his lips stretching out as he smiles, offering a hand. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Yeah?" Stiles grins, jostling Scott with his arm. "You been talking about me?" Scott rolls his eyes and shrugs because, yeah, of course he talks about Stiles. Most everything that happens in his life involves Stiles in one way or another. Except lately, the bits that involve Allison. Stiles gives that weird staccato chuckle, the kind he makes when he crack open a new jug of ice cold milk in the fridge and no one is around to yell at him for drinking straight from it.

"Good things," Deaton assures.

"Cool." Stiles shakes Deaton's hand, giving Scott a sideways look that clearly reads 'so you're heavily abridging our stories, buddy? Good things? Really?' Scott grins.

"For the most part," Deaton tacks on, and Stiles looks awkward again, glances down to where he's shaking Deaton's hand before stepping back. Deaton turns to Scott, "Have a safe trip home."

"Oh, yeah. Sure," Scott says. He can't remember Deaton ever saying that to him before and maybe it is a little odd but the weather has been sort of crappy lately. "Stiles is giving me a ride, I should be fine."

"It's raining very hard out. Driving might be treacherous."

"No, I totally got it," Stiles says, shrugging, and then snaps his mouth closed when Deaton just looks at him. Scott has no idea why his boss and his best friend are acting so weird. He's probably imagining it. Stiles is probably just freaked because of the cats and Deaton is picking up on that, wondering why he's so jumpy or something.

"We should head out." Scott waits for Stiles to nod emphatically, then flashes a grin and a wave at Deaton. "See you tomorrow, Doc."

"Yes. See you tomorrow, Scott."

Scott doesn't realize how tired he is until he settles into the passenger seat of the Jeep and sort of wilts. The rain is falling thick and heavy and chilling the air through, but the Jeep is warm and Scott rests his eyes for a second. It feels like he's half way home already.

Stiles' voice jerks him from his half-nap. "Dude, I don't think your boss likes me much." 

"Deaton? No, he's cool, I promise. He's just like that with everyone."

"I dunno. There was definitely some suspicious creeper-vibes being directed my way. I didn't think it was possible, but he has even fewer facial expression that Derek. Also, what's with the not-blinking? It's super-weird."

Scott has noticed that whenever Stiles says Derek's name it sounds as if he's trying to punch the 'D' in the face, he always says it with a certain amount of outrage even if, in Scott's opinion, Derek hasn't done anything especially outrageous. He squints over at his best friend. "Have you realized how much you've been talking about Derek lately?"

Stiles snorts. "Uh, almost as much as you've been talking about Allison maybe?"

Scott rolls his eyes. "That's different. We're going out. We're official and everything."

"Yeah, well, my life right now basically consists of father-son interrogation funtimes, epic werewolf versus werewolf battles and awkward dinners that sometimes combine the two previous activities with eating. Oh, and lacrosse, and homework. That's about it. Believe me, if I had anything else to talk about, I would." Stiles flattens his palm over his heart like he's making this a vow.

It makes Scott laugh. "Thanks for the drive, anyway."

"Hey, no problem, buddy. FYI, I have selfish motivations." Scott cocks his head to the side and Stiles glances over, grinning. "I'm abducting you. It has been far too long since I whooped your ass at Mario Kart, and that needs to be rectified. ASAP."

Scott's not gonna lie, the moment Stiles says this all his exhaustion sort of slips away. They've been skyping just like usual and texting, and there's been school and lacrosse practice, but they've been living in each other's pocket for years and he's really missed just hanging out with his best friend, not worrying about anything. "Are we gonna get pizza too?"

"That depends, are you gonna get weird shit on yours?"

"Pineapples are not weird."

"Pineapples on pizza are very weird," Stiles insists, because that's how this age-old argument always goes.

Scott's about to bring-up Stiles' love of green olives but instead he finds himself saying, "Speaking of weird, what was up with the cats?"

"Probably instinct," Stiles murmurs, rolling his shoulders as he pointedly focuses out at window on the road ahead. "They sensed a predator."

He wants to make a joke about it but when he glances over Stiles sort of looks freaked out, so Scott just stays silent. He has no idea what to say to comfort his friend. As far as he knows Stiles has never hurt anyone outside of losing control once with Jackson that one time (which Scott stills insists was pretty much self-defense since Jackson was being such a dick), and that whole mess in the locker room where Scott had an asthma attack (which wasn't really Stiles' fault, and Stiles didn't even hurt him, so it doesn't really count). It doesn't seem to alleviate Stiles' worry that he _could_ hurt someone. Scott has tried arguing that technically Stiles could hurt someone just driving down the road in his Jeep but that never seems to do help either.

"Tell me about training," he says, hoping to change the topic. These days it seems that Stiles has a lot of ranting to get out of his system. It makes Scott feel a little guilty because, as much as he wishes he could be out on the lacrosse field, playing first line with Stiles and scoring and being cheered, Stiles is really struggling. Between wolfing-out and worrying about his dad, and then training with Derek, Stiles' time is filled up with things he's doing because he _has_ to, while Scott spends his time working and hanging-out with Allison. He misses having time to with his best friend but, overall, Scott doesn't think he's ever been this happy before, and that sucks because he doesn't think Stiles has ever been this stressed out.

Later that night, when they're laughing at _License to Kill_ and eating pizza Stiles says, "It wouldn't be so bad if we even knew what the hell was going on, you know? Like what's the alpha even waiting for? Why did he bother to turn me?"

"Could have been a mistake?" Scott suggests. "Like maybe it was just an accident. You stumbled on him out in the woods and he panicked and tried to get away. Maybe it's over and he's already left Beacon hills. I mean, has anyone else been hurt lately? It's been a couple of weeks."

Stiles sighs, rubs his right eyebrow. "It just doesn't _feel_ over."

Scott doesn't know what to say because he agrees. What are the chances that the werewolf that turned Stiles was just passing through Beacon Hills? Maybe they've been pretty lucky lately because Scott can admit that things could be going a whole lot worse: Stiles hasn't killed anyone, hasn't maimed anyone, hasn't destroyed anything. He has help, has support even if he isn't fond of Derek and still can't bring himself to trust the man. Scott's got Allison and sometimes he wonders how that even happened but he can at least admit that this is a good thing. A _great_ thing, actually. A _lucky_ thing.

A murdering psycho-werewolf that killed one person and turned another and then just moved on and let everyone else alone? Scott can admit they've been lucky but that would be almost too good to be true.

_________________________________________

The rainfall has left the night air crisp and cool. He feels the damp on his skin and breathes it into his lungs; everything smells fresh and wet and renewed. He tips his head back looking up at the stars and the moon, the darkness of the night sky. His eyes fall closed. Behind him he can hear his dad's heartbeat muffled by the brick and the walls of his house, the closed doors. He bypasses the heartbeats of his neighbors and it's easy, simple enough to pick and choose where to focus his senses, no need to breathe in the scent of the garbage cans set out for the morning collection, or the raccoon across the street that is peeing in Mr. Giafarno's marigolds.

It's dark and it's quiet and everyone is asleep but he is awake. Wide-awake and gloriously alert. Stiles opens his eyes, moves to the end of his driveway. It's not enough to walk on a night so clear and rife with possibilities. There's a fizzing, churning energy inside him pushing him forward, wanting to move and revel in night. 'Why not run?' it asks. 

So he runs. Drops down onto all fours and in a flash he's at the end of his road and it still doesn't feel like enough so he runs further, all the way to Scott's house and still can't settle, runs further. Zigzags down roads and through the park where he gets distracted by a rabbit that he chases in circles until its heart thumps so furiously Stiles thinks the poor thing might have a heart attack. He lets it go, racing back to the road and further still until he's sliding on the rain-wet grass of the lacrosse pitch.

Sliding on the slick ground, reveling in the scent of earth and damp and the familiarity of the school he loses himself, slipping around on the pitch as he plays an imaginary lacrosse game until movement in the parking lot catches his attention. Stiles tips his head back, scents the air. Someone slow moving, almost lumbering, a heavy heartbeat (human, Stiles' mind supplies easily) and not in the best of shape, a smell like worn vinyl and diesel and sweat and those scented car fresheners that smell like artificial pine, mixed with soap and spray starch. Stiles can smell all of that even at this distance and it makes him wriggle with pride. 'Check me out, using my super-senses!' he thinks to himself. He creeps closer, curios about what else he might pick-up.

There's something else out there, something stalking in the shadows beneath the rows of yellow school buses. Something hunkered low and creeping, and at first Stiles thinks it's Derek. He formulates a terrific plan to startle the alpha, pounce on him and see how he likes it. But then it occurs to him that the smell is all wrong: no trace of vanilla sweetness in the air, or the crisp sage and bergamot undertones. Instead there is a smell like wet dog and spray cleaners, sickness and underneath that the scent of white musk and pepper, and it's foreign and it's familiar all at once. It makes every muscle in Stiles' body bunch-up, makes him arch his back and growl even as he's thinking he should stay quiet, keep hidden.

The wolf that's out there hasn't noticed him, or if it has but simply doesn't care. It's following the human between the buses. Stiles can hear the man jingling his keys, whistling a low tuneless song to himself: oblivious. The wolf is moving deliberately, red eyes glowing low to the ground as it creeps, its breathing a soft heavy 'whuff' that carries through the quiet night air.

It could be a fluke. Maybe the alpha was enjoying the night just like Stiles was, came running along and happened by the school simply by chance. Maybe he's watching the man to make certain that the area is clear, pacing quiet because it wishes to remain unseen and safe. Maybe it plans simply to move on once the human goes, finishes with whatever has brought him to the school so late.

Stiles slinks closer, knows he's fooling himself as he watches the alpha prowl. The man has climbed into one of the buses, has unknowingly trapped himself and Stiles has a moment to think: to consider his father and Scott and Mrs. McCall and all the advantages he might have if he tucked tail now and ran even as he knows he won't ever do it. Not when there's an innocent person about to be slaughtered.

Red eyes shift, slicing through the darkness to fix on him and Stiles freezes. The stare is a heavy weight that presses Stiles down to the ground, the growl that fills up the night is loud and menacing. Stiles feels his back arching, his hands tensing as his claws dig deep into the dirt. He can taste blood on his tongue, is suddenly so very aware of the sharpness of his teeth, the savage beautiful potential of them. How they might rend flesh so naturally, how his claws might strike, draw blood, bring death.

It feels like something is pushing into his head and taking him over. He imagines what it might feel like: blood wet and hot on his skin, tangy and sharp in his mouth. Blood, _human_ blood. _That man's_ blood, spurting up from an artery, bubbly and loose and uncontrollable, the satisfaction of that heavy heartbeat stuttering and slowing, falling silent beneath his hands. 

The taste of bile in his mouth pulls him back and Stiles snarls. _No on_ e is getting ripped apart tonight. If anyone is going to be bleeding it’s the alpha. Certainly not that human. Hopefully not Stiles. He paces forward but the alpha growls, another deep rumble that is less a sound than a sensation, like an earthquake shivering through Stiles' skin and his bones. 'Kill', the growl demands. 'Kill', a command that states and restates itself with every beat of that human's heart.

 _That_ human. Greedy, pitiful, fragile, _weak_ human. What connection does he have to Stiles? None at all. Who would miss him? No one. Who could miss a pathetic, spineless, useless man like that? And it would be _worth it_. A token, a gesture, and he would have his alpha. He would have a place, have control. Real and absolute control and he could _trust_ himself again. Could trust that he wouldn't hurt his father, or Scott. Wouldn't break anyone apart. It could be like before, normal. 

Except, whenever he chose, he could have _this_ : this speed, this power. A fair price. 

The alpha disappears, darting up the steps and into the bus. Stiles hears the quickening beats of the human's heart, hears his startled questioning, his frantic pleas. Hears him staggering and stumbling and trapped. The scent of panic fills the air. Panic and terror.

Kill. Kill. The impulse beats, alluring and strong, and Stiles shakes it off, brushes free of it as he leaps forward. He is not this thing. He is not this mindless, bloodthirsty, impulse-driven thing. If this is what it means to have an alpha, to have a pack, then he chooses to be alone because he will not kill. Nothing is worth that price.

Racing up the steps of the bus, Stiles leaps claws outstretched, roaring as he sinks his claws into the alpha's back.


	5. Chapter 5

Everywhere people are pulling into the parking lot, hopping out of cars or off their bikes, slinging their backpacks over their shoulders and waving and smiling and bundling into tight groups as they head up the steps of the school and here Scott is still standing on the sidewalk, feeling vaguely unsettled. 

He's still there when Allison walks up to him and gives him a peck on the cheek. "Hey, what's up?" Her bright smile slides off her face almost immediately. "Scott? Is something wrong?"

"Uh," he blinks, and then shakes his head. "Stiles isn't here."

Her fingers curl loosely around his wrist and she turns, glancing out at the parking lot where Stiles' blue Jeep is notably absent. "Maybe he's running late?" Scott shakes his head, can't find the words to explain that Stiles is never late because his dad always hauls him out of bed and chases him out the door. Allison frowns. "Or he could just be sick today."

"No. I mean, whenever he's sick he texts me. If he weren't coming in to school he would have told me." Just in case, Scott rechecks his phone but there are zero messages.

There's a fond quirk to Allison's lips as she looks at him. "You guys are pretty close."

"We're like brothers." Scott turns back to the road hoping to see the Jeep, hoping that Stiles is just running late. That he'll pull up to the curb and hop out from behind the wheel already complaining about how the damned thing took forever to start and he couldn't get out of his driveway. There's no sign of the Jeep or of Stiles anywhere.

"Did you try calling him?" she asks. Scott nods. He's called and sent three texts and hasn't heard anything back. "I'm sure it's fine. Lets get into school and get our stuff before we're late. Try again before first period starts."

"Okay. Yeah, you're right." He follows her up the stairs, pauses by her locker while she collects her things and can't help grinning when she returns the favor, standing beside him as he drags out the textbooks he'll need for the morning. 

He's almost managed to convince himself that he's worked up over nothing when the PA system crackles to life. "Attention students, this is your principal. I know you're all wondering about the incident that occurred last night to one of our buses but while the police work to determine what happened, classes will proceed as scheduled."

Scott frowns. "What happened to the bus?"

Allison shrugs. "I have no idea." Zipping his backpack closed, Scott shuts his locker. "I've got to head to class," Allison says, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah. 'Course." She gives him a peck on the cheek again and a worried look before heading down the hall. Scott makes his way on hesitant feet in the direction of Chemistry, having difficulty imagining surviving Harris without Stiles there to make it bearable. He hesitates in the hallway glancing out the window where he can see the roof of one of the yellow school buses, backed in close to the school with its rear emergency doors opened. It must be the one the principal mentioned because he can see several deputies milling around it, and the Sheriff climbing up the steps cautiously. 

It takes Scott a minute because at first he thinks it's some sort of prank: some kids broke in and threw some red paint on the bus. Maroon is one of their school colors so it could be a delayed celebration of their most recent lacrosse win. But along with the red are some pretty deeply carved marks that cut through the back door of the bus and, even at this distance and looking at it from an awkward angle, Scott still can't help but consider them claw marks. "Oh no." He turns on his heel and races down the hall.

_________________________________________

His eyes are open and he is seeing and yet he is not seeing, like looking through a smudged windshield or stealing someone's prescription glasses just to watch the whole world distort. He breathes in deeply through his nose and he recognizes the smells: home and safety, his own scent permeating everything in a way that marks the space as his, but there is his dad's scent, and Derek's. They're talking but not to him and that's fine because Stiles can't follow what they're saying anyway. He can't do much of anything except suck in another breath and this time he can smell blood and it makes his hackles raise, makes him growl and whimper.

"Come with me," someone says. Stiles can't tell if it's his dad or Derek but a hand wraps carefully around his upper arm and he lets himself be guided even if he can't be sure where he's going. It smells like his home and he thinks he must be moving through the upstairs hall but everything is a blur of senseless color. There's the sound of a door being pushed open and the impression of coolness under his feet. 

The hand on his arm lets him go and he stops walking. Stands still where he has been placed. He can smell the minty tang of toothpaste, and the honey milk scent of his dad's shaving cream, the crisp freshness of soap. A bathroom then, he thinks. His bathroom. His house. Safe.

"You should shower," someone is saying, and Stiles breathes in cedar and clove, gun oil and honey milk. His dad. Stiles tips his head forward, rests his forehead against the starched crispness of his dad's shirt and breathes. A hand settles on the back of his neck, a soothing weight. "Can you take it from here? Hey, you with me, kiddo?" 

There's a hiss as the shower comes to life. On autopilot Stiles starts shedding his clothes. "Stiles? Come on, kid," his dad is calling, and Stiles pauses, trying to focus. His dad has his hands braced on Stiles' shoulders, is leaning forward a little so their eyes are level. "I've gotta head out, okay? But Derek's gonna stay and I'll be back as soon as I can. Alright, son?" 

He manages a jerky nod, holds still while his dad frowns at him clearly torn, and then finally retreats, closing the bathroom door as he goes. Stiles finishes kicking off his clothes and steps under the spray. When he reaches to pull the curtain closed he realizes the scent of blood is coming from him, from his hands that are covered in red-brown traces of it, from his arms and probably from the clothes he's left in a pile.

Blinking, he finishes drawing the curtain closed and reaches for the soap. The water turns red as it swirls down the drain. He watches it impassively. 

There's a soft tap on the door just as he's working shampoo into his close-cropped hair. He doesn't answer, holds still as he listens to the door opening. His nostrils flare as he breathes: cardamom and vanilla and bergamot. Derek. There's a soft rustle as something is set down on the counter. Stiles watches the shadow of Derek's shape move from behind the opaque shower curtain, his body tensed and frozen as he waits. Derek bends down, a faint sound of rustling as something is collected from off the tile. The door closes again and Stiles breathes, reaches out and turns the tap to full hot. The burn is good on his skin, grounding.

He's feeling more like himself by the time he turns the water off. His skin is pink and there's a thick steam filling the bathroom but he's thinking clearly, enough to realize that Derek collected his dirty laundry from the floor and brought in fresh clothes. Sweatpants and a worn T-shirt are waiting in a folded pile by the bathroom sink. It's a little awkward but Stiles can't bring himself to feel embarrassed. Mostly he's just happy not to have to walk back to his room in nothing but a towel. 

When he steps out into the hallway his eyes drift immediately to his open bedroom door through which he can see Derek. The alpha is sitting somewhat stiffly on a chair, reading a book he must have pulled down off of Stiles' bookshelf. He doesn't glance up even if he must hear Stiles, or smell him. Every part of Stiles feels as if it has been pulled taught, seconds from snapping; he knows he's fidgeting awkwardly in his own hallway, skittish and embarrassingly ready to turn-tail and run at the slightest provocation, which means he's also feeling weirdly grateful that Derek is steadfastly ignoring him, giving him a chance to catch his bearings. It only takes him a few minutes and then Stiles convinces his feet to move again.

Leaving the bedroom door wide open, Stiles finishes drying off his hair before he pitches the damp towel into his laundry basket, busies himself with rummaging through his drawers on the pretense of finding a suitable hoody to pull on over his shirt. There is no trace of blood in the air, which means Derek must have taken his clothes downstairs to the laundry room. Stiles thinks this is probably odd, that Derek knows his way around the house so well, is confident enough to do this sort of thing, but he dismisses it. If there is one thing that Stiles has learned about the other werewolf in the past week it's that Derek really doesn't have a good grasp of boundaries or social norms, or manners in general. 

Derek turns the page of the book he's reading, the paper rasping loudly making Stiles freeze again. He doesn't know what his reaction means, can't fathom why he is so jumpy. He's home and he's safe and even though he checked every inch of himself there are no new injuries anywhere, no scars, nothing. He's fine.

With a frustrated puff of air he slams the drawer closed and faces the other wolf, forcing himself to admit, "I don't remember how I got here."

Derek glances up at him, something in his gaze assessing. "That's fine," he says, setting the book aside. "What _do_ you remember?"

The first thing that comes to mind is Scott: bickering over pizza toppings like they always do and watching campy Bond films. Stiles glances to his window and the sun is up and the sky is clear and when Scott was over it had been night. That's a worrying number of hours that are just completely missing from his memory. Stiles closes his eyes and tries to think, tries to force the memories to come back.

Like a rip current the feeling snags at him: the crisp coolness of the evening air, running, chasing a rabbit, finding his way to the lacrosse field, the sound of a slow heartbeat. "I went out last night," he says as he remembers. "As the wolf." Derek just keeps watching him and Stiles can't get the memory of that heartbeat out of his head. It occurs to him suddenly that his dad isn’t here with him. That his dad rushed out when Stiles was still half out of his mind. "Tell me," he says, half demanding and half pleading. "Tell me I didn't kill anyone."

Derek doesn't say anything. He stands up from the chair and steps closer. "Stiles, breathe. Try to remember."

There are only shards of memory: the sounds of snarls and screams, the smell of blood and wet fur and pepper and starch. "I think—" he says. "I think—"

"Stiles." Derek speaks with just enough force that Stiles manages to take in a full breath, and with the clarity that the oxygen brings comes a flash of the school bus, of the alpha wolf and its red eyes and its thirst for vengeance.

"Oh god," Stiles groans. "Oh god, is he dead? Who was he? Is he okay?"

Derek grips his shoulders hard. "Tell me what you remember."

"I don't know what I was doing. I don't know how it happened, I didn't plan to, I didn't _want_ to – but I went out as the wolf, and I was running and I ended up at school and there was someone there. A human."

"Keep going," Derek prompts.

The more he talks, the more he's remembering. "The alpha was there. He wanted to kill the guy." The shock of realization makes him pause. "It didn't feel random. The alpha wanted me to help kill the guy, whoever it was, but it felt personal. Like a vendetta, almost. It was …" he trails off recalling the horrible sensation, almost like mind-control as the alpha demanded a human sacrifice, _this_ human sacrifice.

"What else?"

"Uh," Stiles rubs an unsteady hand over his face. "It promised me control, like full control of the wolf if I killed with him. But I –" Just like that he can breathe again, " _I didn't_ … The alpha went after the guy and I tried to stop him. Is he okay? The human, I mean. Did he make it?"

"Your dad's over there now." Derek lets him go, steps away. "He said he'd call when he knew anything."

"How did I get here?"

"I don't know. Your dad phoned me because he found you standing in the middle of your room in some sort of fugue-state. You weren't responding to him at all."

Stiles lets that sink in for a minute. "Was it me, or was it the wolf?" 

Derek frowns at him. "They're one in the same."

Stiles glares. "Just answer the question, Derek. Was the wolf standing in here with my dad? Or was it me? _Human_ me?"

Derek sighs. "He didn't mention teeth or claws. I assume he would have."

Stiles nods, relieved. The idea that he might have been out of his mind and out of control and wolfed-out in the same room as his dad makes him shiver, he pushes a wave of nausea and guilt away and drops onto the edge of his bed, rests his head in his hands. "Do you think I killed the alpha?"

Derek shakes his head. "Doubtful."

"How can you be sure, though?"

Derek huffs. "Because when I got here there was blood under your fingernails and on your clothes and your face but you weren't hurt. Any wound inflicted by an alpha would take longer to heal, but you were fine. If it had been a serious fight the alpha wouldn't have held back in defending himself. You'd have injuries to show for it."

"So then he let me go?" That is vaguely unsettling. "Why would he do that?"

The look Derek gives him suggests that the answer should be obvious. "Because he still wants you in his pack."

"But _why_?"

Derek opens his mouth but whatever response he might have given is cut-off by the sound of a knock on the front door. "It's Scott," Stiles says, rubbing a hand over his face. Derek raises his eyebrows, and Stiles waves a hand, "We've been friends for eons, dude. I’d know that knock anywhere."

"Are you sure it was just the knock?"

The moment Derek asks him, Stiles realizes that his senses are not entirely reigned in; he hasn't pushed the wolf away to the dark little corner of his mind that he likes to keep it. He knows it's Scott waiting at his front door because Stiles heard a bike skidding up his driveway and Scott's heartbeat, which he has grown familiar with. He smelled a trace of his friend's scent through the opened bedroom window. 

Something of his realization must read on his face because Derek nods once, satisfied. "Don't push it away again," before he goes to answer the front door.

Stiles is supposed to be easing-up on his control, tapping into some of his new abilities rather than rejecting the wolf outright. In his opinion he's not rejecting his inner wolf so much as he is artfully avoiding it. One super power is awesome, is in fact something that he has regularly fantasized about since he was a kid. A whole bunch of super-powers at once though? That's overwhelming, even if Stiles hasn't spent the entirety of his life to-date being the awkward, scrawny hyperactive kid who relied on his smart-mouth more than his fists. He's not doing it consciously (well, not since he's gotten a better handle on his anchor), but denial ain't just a river in Egypt and when it comes to his newfound ability to Hulk-out and smash things (including people) into the ground with his mighty fists Stiles has become the master of 'deny deny deny'.

There's the faint click of the locks turning and then the sound of the door being pulled open, and then Scott is thundering up the stairs. It makes Stiles smile and it also makes him feel guilty for having worried his friend, even if it wasn't intentional.

"Stiles!" Scott shouts, appearing in the door with his backpack still on his shoulders, face flushed and breathless. "Stiles!" he gasps, and then pulls his inhaler from his front pocket and takes a death breath of his medication. "Stiles, man, are okay?" he demands once the inhaler has been shoved away again. He darts forward, backpack dropping off his shoulders as he moves and Stiles stands up and then he's being squished as Scott strings sentences together without pausing for breath, "Are you okay? What happened? You weren't at school and one of the buses was just _wrecked_ and there were _claw marks_ and I thought – Jesus, Stiles, but I _thought_ …"

"I didn't kill anyone," Stiles protests.

"That's not even …" Scott pushes Stiles back enough to frown at him in genuine confusion, searching Stiles' face like he's trying to find what damaged part of Stiles' brain comes up with this kind of shit.

"It was the other alpha," Derek supplies helpfully, hovering in the doorway. 

Stiles shrugs. "I tried to fight him off." 

Scott's eyebrows climb up his forehead and he looks sort of stunned. "Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine," Stiles assures, clapping a hand on his friend's arm. "Scott, trust me. I'm okay, buddy." It takes a little bit longer for his friend to believe this, Stiles assumes it's probably the adrenaline wearing off. They end up curled on opposite ends of Stiles' double bed while Derek tentatively perches on the desk chair, like he's not entirely certain whether he should give them some privacy or not.

"Your dad was there with a couple of deputies," Scott is saying. "I couldn't get close and, to be honest, I kinda didn't want to. I mostly just worried about the claw marks and the blood and the fact that you weren't at school. Sorry."

"Hey, no worries." Stiles pokes at his friend's knee with his foot and offers a reassuring smile. 

"I saw them loading the guy onto an ambulance when I was getting my bike."

"Well that's good, right?" Stiles asks, glancing at Derek. "If they were putting him into an ambulance that means he was still alive."

"Yeah." Scott doesn't exactly sound confident but he musters up a smile anyway. Stiles has the sense it is purely for his benefit. "Yeah, totally. He's gonna be fine."

"What?" Stiles growls. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing," Scott assures, but it's not in his nature to lie, especially not to his best friend. "Just, he was pretty messed up. I mean, I couldn't see much but there was a lot of blood."

There might have been a lot of blood but maybe it was from a head wound. Those bleed a lot. Stiles refuses to contemplate any outcome in which the guy, whoever he is, isn't completely fine. Stiles had a run in with the alpha and it could have gone better admittedly, but it could have been a whole lot worse. "Fucking alphas," he scoffs to himself. Derek narrows his eyes and grumbles and Stiles catches himself, "No offense, dude, but seriously."

There's an uncomfortable stretch where the three of them sit around and fidget and generally seem incapable of interacting with one another normally. Stiles solves this problem by leading the way downstairs to the TV. When his dad returns around lunch time he finds all three of them sitting on the floor, shouting at one another as they play Mario Kart.

The first thing Stiles wants to know is whether or not the guy, a bus driver by the name of Garrison Meyers, is okay. His dad can't tell him anything for certain, except that he was alive when he was removed from the scene. "He's still in critical condition," his dad says, rubbing a hand on Stiles' shoulder. "We'll have to wait and see." 

Since Stiles was apparently out of his mind before his dad left this morning they end up all seated around the table while he recaps everything that he remembers from the other night, which isn't much. The alpha was in wolf-shape and outside of being absolutely massive and hairy, and having red eyes there's not much of a description that Stiles can give. "It was definitely personal though," he insists. "I mean, the alpha wanted me to kill with him but it was definitely not random. It wasn't like he wanted me to hunt down just anyone. There's something about this Meyers guy specifically."

"You're sure?" his dad asks.

Stiles nods. "Definitely."

"But I knew him," Scott pipes up. "I mean, he used to drive the bus back when I lived with my dad. He was a nice guy. I mean, he didn't seem…"

Stiles' dad rubs a hand over his face and sighs. "Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean anything." He checks again that Stiles is okay, and then double-checks that Derek is going to hang around for the rest of the day, as if Stiles needs a babysitter. "Scott, phone your mother, explain why you weren't in your morning classes. Then I want you back at school."

"But dad!" Stiles complains at the same time that Scott whines, "But Mr. Stilinski!"

"No buts," Stiles' dad says, holding up a finger. "There's enough chaos in this town at the moment, there's no way I'm risking more by leaving you two here to get up to mischief. Now, I've gotta go back into work. You're sure you're okay?"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Dad, I'm fine. Go. I'll just be chilling out here with Derek." He perks up and turns to the other werewolf. "Hey, can we spar?"

Derek stares at him blankly. "No."

"Come on, man! If I'm under house-arrest I can at least do something productive."

One dark eyebrow slants upward. "We can work on using your senses, then."

Stiles slumps because he'd sort of known Derek was going to say that. When he looks to his dad for some sympathy he doesn't find it. "Scott, if you get your stuff together I can drop you back at school on my way to the station."

"Sure," Scott says. "Thanks." Stiles follows his friend upstairs, hesitating just inside his room as Scott collects his book bag and double-checks that he has everything. Scott promises to come straight over after work, explaining that Allison was also worried and would it be okay if Scott told her that Stiles was home sick. Stiles' hearing extends well-beyond the room and while he nods his agreement with his friend's words and assures Scott that a stomach bug is as good an excuse as any for Stiles' absence, he's also listening to his dad and Derek talking downstairs:

"This alpha werewolf wants my son to become a criminal?" his dad is asking, his voice smoothed out and deep like he's trying not to be overheard even if he must understand that it's inevitable.

"It's about power. The alpha wants Stiles to submit to him, to join his pack. Killing is a way to demonstrate loyalty; it's not something that Stiles himself would avoid doing of his own volition, which makes it a clear act of obedience."

"That sounds … that doesn't sound good."

"It's not," Derek agrees. "The alpha called Stiles out against his will. If it happens again and Stiles refuses there's no guarantee that the alpha, whoever he is, will demonstrate the same restraint he did last night."

"You mean he might hurt my son."

"I mean he might kill him."

_________________________________________

Scott's phone chirrups just as Stiles' dad is pulling into the school parking lot. "That my son?" the Sheriff asks wryly.

Scott grins as he pulls his phone from his pocket. "Yeah, probably," he admits. The text is a picture of Derek sitting on the floor of the Stilinski family room with his legs crossed and his hands hanging loose over his knees. The caption Stiles has given the image reads "Ommm nom nom nom. Is it lunch yet?" Scott is still snickering when, two seconds later, his phone pings again this time with an image blurred with motion: Derek lunging toward the camera. Scott full-out laughs.

"Everything okay?" the Sheriff asks.

"Yeah. I think Derek just discovered that teaching Stiles to sit still is a lost cause." 

"Oh boy." 

They pull to a stop by the school's entrance and Scott shoves his phone back into his pocket before he grabs his school bag. "Thanks for the ride."

"No skipping classes," the Sheriff says. "Stay safe." Scott waves over his shoulder as he jogs up the steps.

He has always hated it when Stiles is absent from school. It doesn't happen too often because generally Stiles doesn't get sick, though when he does it's usually epic. Probably that's not anything Stiles will have to worry about anymore, getting sick. But if this is the start of a new trend then maybe werewolf-drama will mean he misses school for entirely different reasons. Scott's not looking forward to that and yeah, that's partially for selfish reasons because it's weird not having Stiles at his side all the time, but also werewolf-drama is worryingly serious. Scott doesn't want his best friend getting hurt. 

In Econ Scott gets another text, the phone on silent vibrating in his pocket. When Finstock is distracted Scott pulls out his phone and checks his texts: "We're going _running!_ " the message says, with a little horrified emoticon beside it. It's short and not at all descriptive but it makes Scott smile anyway because he can imagine the exact way Stiles would have spoken those words, and the exact face he'd be making if they were talking together in person.

"Scott!" Allison calls at lunch, waving him over to her table as if he would have ever sat anywhere else. That's something else that has changed this year. Used to be that Scott and Stiles would have a table all to themselves, but lately their table is crammed with people, _popular_ people. Scott isn't sure if this is because of Stiles' becoming first line on the team, or because of Allison but either way at the very least Lydia and Jackson and Danny join them _every day_. Like it's _normal_.

"Did you get in touch with Stiles?" Allison asks when Scott drops into the chair beside her.

"Yeah he's uh … stomach bug…" Swallowing thickly Scott holds her gaze because Stiles has often told him that a sure sign of a lie is when the person refuses to make eye contact. He feels like there is a neon sign on his forehead proclaiming that he just outright told an untruth to his own girlfriend. He feels horrible.

"Stilinski's sick?" Jackson asks, smirking cruelly. 

"Stomach bug!" Scott blurt again, this time louder.

"Yes, _thank_ -you," Lydia snips. "We all heard you the first time. Is he going to be well enough to play in the game this weekend?"

Scott nods. "Oh yeah. It should be a twenty-four hour thing."

Allison is frowning at him. "How can you be sure?"

"I … uh … hope?" She opens her mouth like she's about the say something, but Scott hurries on. "I'm dropping by his place after school. He … he texted me. He was just sleeping in. Because of the flu."

Allison waits until the table has settled into conversation before she leans into him, lowering her voice. "Are you okay?"

"Sure. Yes. Why?"

"I just …" she trails off and shrugs. "You were really worried this morning…"

It doesn't feel right, outright lying to her. Scott has been told, frequently and with great enthusiasm, that he sucks at lying. Stiles has made it clear that if the need ever arose Scott was supposed to nod and flash his puppy dog face and agree with whatever Stiles was saying and beyond that, to say nothing.

Left to his own devices Scott feels his resolve weakening. Allison is his girlfriend. Isn't there a rule about lying to your girlfriend? Plus, he loves her. Really and truly loves her. Which means Scott trusts her, and she knows how important Stiles is to Scott even if they haven't had the chance to really hang out all together, she still understands that Stiles is and will forever be Scott's best friend, pretty much his brother. She would never do anything to hurt Stiles.

He opens his mouth and his phone rings. Scott winces and Allison crinkles her face and shrugs. When Scott checks his phone it's Stiles' number, the photo he took of his best friend appearing in the top corner, Stiles flashing a smug little grin and flashing two thumbs up. Scott mouthes an apology to Allison as he answers, "Hey, Man, what's up?"

"Would you fucking _slow down_ already?" Stiles' voice comes over the line, slightly muffled.

Scott frowns. "Stiles?"

"Stop repressing your abilities," Derek says over the line, barely audible. "You could catch up with me if you weren't so preoccupied with subduing your wolf."

"My wolf is out and proud right now, okay? Happy? These fucking cars are distracting!" 

Scott can hear the swish-rush of steady traffic and a rustle that is presumably Stiles moving around. Scott snickers and looks at Allison, "I think he pocket dialed me," he confides.

Allison's brow pinches together. "He pocket dialed you from home?"

"Oh!" Scott frowns. "uh … yeah, I can hear a movie playing…" He turns away from her in order to hide his wince and settles for calling, "Stiles! Hey, man, can you hear me?"

"Oh my god, Scott where are you?" Stiles asks. The rustling sound gets louder and then, "Oh, hey. Whoops. Awkward. I thought you followed us out here. That would have been awesome because this, right now? This is _totally sucking!_ " the last bit he says with a raised voice, obviously intending for Derek to hear.

"You pocket dialed me, dude. I'm sitting a the lunch table right now," Scott says.

Whatever Stiles is about to ask gets cut off abruptly and instead Scott listens to his friend squawking indignantly as Derek presumably snatches the phone away. "You can have the phone back when you can actually catch me," Derek says to Stiles, and then, into the phone, "Scott? Stop distracting him." The line disconnects and Scott is a little upset because he wasn't distracting Stiles, he was just having an innocent lunch.

It's sort of a moot point though, seeing as there is no one around he can explain this to. Stowing his phone he turns to Allison, sheepish. "Sorry about that … it was just…" the bell ring and he sags with relief. He really has no idea how he would have explained this. "Walk you to class?" he asks. She hesitates only a moment before she nods.

_________________________________________

Stiles is still lying in an ungainly sprawl on the sofa in the living room when Scott heads home. "You're not staying for dinner?" he asks, and manages to sound disappointed even if he fails to do more than turn his head slightly so he can watch his friend collect his bag from the hall where he left it.

"Naw, sorry," Scott says with a shrug. "My mom's getting back from her shift soon. I promised we'd have dinner together."

"No worries, dude." Mom's trump pretty much everything. Or at least, that used to be the saying. Now Stiles substitutes 'parents' because no way is he missing movie night when his dad is back from an early shift, or can spare a few hours for dinner together. 

The door shuts gently behind on Scott's shouted good-bye and Stiles is just beginning to consider whether his increasing level of hunger is adequate incentive to move from his sprawl when Derek wanders in. Stiles sort of forgot the alpha was there at all. "I'm ordering pizza," Derek says. "I'll get a thin crust veggie for your dad, but what do you want on yours?"

"Meat," Stiles grunts. "I hurt _everywhere_. You're a sadist and I hate you."

"Fine. I won't order you any pizza then."

"Wait, no! Derek … Derek come back," Stiles calls, but Derek has wandered away. Whatever. The alpha can totally still hear him. "Derek," he drags the name out to eight syllables. "I lo-ove you. Feed me, Derek!" 

"Go take a shower. You stink," Derek's voice drifts in from somewhere. Stiles makes a face. He suspects Derek has gone outside just to test that Stiles hasn't shoved his wolf back into the dusty corner of his mind where he tends to keep it.

"It's your fault for making me run around _all day_ , you evil bastard," Stiles mutters. He tries to work up the energy to move because Derek sort of has a point, Stiles feels gross.

He's still lying on the couch when his dad gets home. "Do I wanna know?" his dad asks, standing by Stiles' feet that are hanging over the armrest.

"I am become one with the couch," Stiles answers gravely. Then he gets a good look at the pinched expression his dad is wearing and suddenly he's no longer bonelessly tired. He scrambles up into a sitting position. "What is it? What happened?"

"Whoa, easy there."

His dad isn't meeting his eyes and Stiles feels something heavy drop into his stomach. Swallowing thickly he asks, "The guy didn't make it, did he?"

His dad sighs, dropping down onto the couch, patting Stiles' leg twice. "No, kiddo, he didn't."

Darkness settles over him as smoothly as night falls. Stiles feels a disconnect from his dad and this room and the couch and his own body, is suddenly untethered and adrift in a wave of fear and panic and grief and guilt and he wonders how he can possibly expect to survive, to protect his dad and Scott and Melissa and the people that matter. Who knows what the alpha is planning, what he wants outside of Stiles to start killing people, which Stiles simply can't do.

Maybe to save his dad? But no. Because who is to say that the alpha wouldn't keep pushing for more and more until finally, when Stiles is so far gone, so unrecognizable to himself that he simply obeys without thought, maybe then the alpha asks him to kill Scott. To kill his dad. It feels like if he gives in, even just a little bit, he'll lose himself so absolutely that there will be no turning back.

All of that crashes over him and he spends a few moments awash is a nauseous haze before he pushes it away. "Okay," he says, and then forces himself to say it again, this time with more conviction. "Okay. Did you find anything out, though? Did you get a chance to talk to him?"

His dad grips the back of his neck gently but firmly. When Stiles looks up, prepared to argue that he needs to know these things he finds his dad sharing a look with Derek, who is leaning against the wall just inside the room. "Yeah he uh…" his dad trails off. "He seemed to know the Hales. But that was pretty much all we could get out of him. He was pretty worn out."

"How sure are we that the alpha didn't get into the hospital and finish him off?"

"Pretty sure," his dad says. "His heart just gave out, as far as the doctors can tell."\

Stiles rubs his hands over his head, tries to sort through the millions of thoughts each battling for his focus. Somehow this keeps coming back to Derek, who just happened to show up in town when all of this started, whose sister was murdered, and whose house burned down. Who the bus driver somehow knew. 

Stiles narrows his eyes at Derek but as much as he is reluctant to trust the other werewolf he has stopped thinking that he might be directly responsible for any of this. Still, does this mean the other alpha know Derek? Does this mean the other alpha knows something about the fire? Maybe it doesn't mean anything at all, the Hales were a prominent family in Beacon Hills once upon a time. Reclusive, maybe, but prominent. It's not entirely impossible that the bus driver knew one of the many Hale kids, ferried them to school and back maybe.

"Hey, we're not gonna figure this out tonight," his dad tells him. "This sort of stuff is what my deputies are for, got it? Don't wear yourself out on this, kiddo."

Stiles nods half-heartedly. "I'm gonna shower." He pushes himself off the couch after a minute. 

"Fifteen minutes before the pizza gets here," Derek tells him as he climbs the stairs.

Standing under the cool spray Stiles tries not to think about how this is his second shower of the day. How just this morning he was standing right here, washing Garrison Meyers' blood off himself. This time it's just sweat, he reminds himself, pointedly not watching the water swirl down the drain. He doesn't linger, toweling off quickly and heading into his room.

Stiles pulls on a pair of soft flannel sleep pants and an oversized band T-shirt that's been worn and washed so frequently there's barely any logo left visible at all. Just as he's pushing his arms through the sleeve there's a knock on his door. "Yeah?"

Derek pushes the door open, jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "The pizza's here."

"I know. I heard the delivery guy," Stiles says. He rubs a hand over his already mostly dried hair. "Look, I know why you stuck around today, and I know you have some sort of deal with my dad, but I've got claws, okay? And teeth. All he's got is a gun and I'm pretty sure that would do dick to this alpha. I need you to shadow him okay? Not me."

"I'm shadowing both of you, that's the deal." One of Derek's dark eyebrows arches smoothly, "And your friend, and his mom."

Puffing out a breath, Stiles sits down on the corner of his bed. "I'm a shitty friend," he murmurs. "All Scott wants is to be a normal high school kid, and now I'm a werewolf and there's a psycho alpha after me…"

"Hey," Derek says. "This is a precaution only. Right now there's no reason to think the alpha cares about anything beyond his own plans and you. If you piss him off he'll probably just kill you and move on."

Stiles laughs. "It's weird, how comforting that is."

Derek smirks. "Maybe next time I make you run through the woods you'll actually push yourself."

"What?" Stiles asks, gaping. "I totally did! I ran so fast!"

"You did more tripping and falling than you did tracking."

"Okay true, but in my defense …"

"Come on you two!" Stiles' dad calls from downstairs. "Pizza's getting cold!"

_________________________________________

It's not that Scott forgets about the alpha, because that's not the sort of thing you can just forget about. He has a pretty serious conversation with Stiles over skype about how Meyers mentioned the Hales before he died, and he tries to help brainstorm some thoughts on how someone might develop and epic vendetta against a bus driver.

But when Stiles comes into school the next day he's chipper and sarcastic just like usual, and at lunch when their table is overrun Lydia keeps the conversation circling around the upcoming lacrosse game and making sure that Stiles intends to play and Scott keeps elbowing his best friend because, hell yeah! Lydia is finally talking to Stiles, is finally paying attention to him and Scott is totally happy for his friend. It's about time.

So it's not that Scott forgets about the alpha so much as he allows himself to be distracted. First by Stiles, and then by schoolwork and then actual school, and by the time Allison invites him over to study at her place, it's sort of business as usual. Like things have settled back into place, and Scott's feeling good again because Stiles seems okay and he's at school and things are just carrying on, which is comforting.

Plus Allison shoved his notebook away when he had sat on her bed and tried to open it, climbed right into his lap with an impish grin and covered his mouth with her so, yeah, there are just other things to think about.

They get around to studying eventually, and then a conversation about a short story they read for English detours into a more personal conversation about things they enjoy doing, things they're good at, and Allison admits there isn't much that she's kept up with. "There is one thing…" she says, trailing off shyly and then glancing at him measuringly. She pats his thigh and says, "Okay. Follow me," and so he does. Through her huge house and over to the garage. 

"I was nationally ranked as a kid, and my dad wanted me to go on but I didn't really like it," she explains. "Promise you won't laugh!" Scott's a little caught up with the garage that she's brought him into because there are weapons everywhere, and when he turns around there's a bow in her hands, inches away from the end of his nose.

"What the hell is that?" he asks as he jumps back instinctively.

"It's a compound bow." She scrunches her face like that should be obvious, but her bright laughter takes the sting out of it. "And I'm pretty sure it requires an arrow to be harmful."

Scott huffs and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I know." He tries to pretend that she didn't just give him a minor heart attack, but he can't deny his heart rate ratcheted up. "So that's what you're good at. Archery."

With an exaggerated glare she points at him accusingly and says, "You said you wouldn't laugh!" and shoves him playfully. He lets himself stumble with the force of her push and that's when, completely randomly, he hears Stiles' voice replaying in his head, a conversation from a week ago where he was talking about running through the woods with Derek, being chased and shot by hunters, and while Scott's remembering his friend's words he's looking at all the guns and all the weapons.

Suddenly Scott thinks of that day when Allison had been dropped off by her dad and Stiles had been there, and Scott had gotten this weird sense that Stiles was holding something back. It starts fitting together in his head even though a part of him is desperately insisting that he's wrong, he's being paranoid, he's making trouble that doesn't exist. 

But the fact is, there are werewolf hunters in Beacon Hills and here is a whole garage stuffed with weapons and it doesn't matter that Allison's dad has a job that explains all of it because obviously he couldn't just say: "Yeah, I need these to kill werewolves". 

"Scott?" Allison asks, bending down to peek at him, and he realizes he's hunched forward, his hands braced on his knees. "I was just messing around."

"I'm sorry!" Scott blurts as his mind whirs. 

Why wouldn't Stiles just tell him the truth? I mean, obviously not right then because Allison had been standing there and her dad hadn't been all that far off, but later, over the weekend, or when they had skyped that night, or at lunch or _something_. Unless he didn't want to come between Scott and Allison and, right, of course, that's exactly something Stiles would do. The idiot. "Do you…" he clears his throat. "Do you like, hunt? Or, you know…still, like, practice?"

Allison shrugs. "No, not for a while." Scott sags with relief. At least that means she wasn't out in the woods trying to kill his best friend. Maybe she doesn't even know what her dad does? Scott's totally going to kill Stiles, but this doesn't necessarily mean anything has to change.

Anyway, it could be nothing. Maybe Allison's dad doesn't know anything about werewolves at all, and really does only have a garage stocked with weapons because he sells it to law enforcement.

Yeah, he's totally phoning Stiles about this. No more bullshit, no more secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N: May 3/'15** I'm so sorry it's been so long since this has been updated, but I promise it _has not_ been abandoned! I'm concentrating on getting the next chapter of 'Red' sorted, and while I wait for my beta to finish that I'm going through all the chapters of this story and tidying them up some. This fic has no beta so I'm trying to catch as many of my mistakes as I can. The next chapter is half-done. I've been struggling with all-round writer's block but going back into this has helped. Hopefully I'll get back on track this month. Thank-you to everyone who has (and is) sticking with me).
> 
>  **A/N: July 5/'15** I've been really busy and so far have only managed to edit the first chapter of this. Since it's been so long since I've updated I sort of lost the threat of the story, so while I'd love to jump into chapter 6 and post that ASAP and go back to editing previous chapters I tried and it's not working. So editing it is. Please stick with me! There will be new posts soon!
> 
> Heads up that, depending on how the next chapter develops, this story may become 13 chapters instead of the previously anticipated 12.
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://dragons-are-a-girls-bestfriend.tumblr.com/).


End file.
